fLIBRMYOF CONGRESS 

J ^^.J3g 



J UNITED STATES OP AMMICA. ! 

9P %%%%%%%< 



OUR NEW DEPARTURE: 



OK, 



THE METHODS AND WORK 



UNIVERSALIST CHURCH OP AMERICA, 

AS IT ENTERS ON 

ITS SECOND CENTURY. f T HE library 

|0f CONGRESS 
BY BWASHING^JN 

ELBRIDGE GERRY BROOKS, D.D., 

PASTOR OF THE CHURCH OF THE MESSIAH, 
PHILADELPHIA. 



" Whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the 
same rule, let us mind the same thing." 



3 J 

BOSTON: V 



UNIVERSALIST PUBLISHING HOUSE, 

NO. 37 CORNHILL. 

1874. 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, 

BY ELBRIDGE GERRY BROOKS, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Stereotyped at the Boston Stereotype Foundry, 
19 Spring Lane. 



TO 



Carrie: 



OUR BEAUTIFUL MEMORY 
O N E A R TH ; 

OUR FLOWN 'DOVE' AWAITING US 
IN HE A VEN 



PREFACE 



This book was planned early in 1871, and was to have been published a few 
months after. I regret that it could not have been so published. But under 
the peremptory order of my physician, I was compelled as nearly as possible 
to suspend all mental labor during the fall and winter of 1871-72, and much 
of the ensuing spring. In August following, my eyes failed, and during the 
autumn and early winter, when I had hoped to finish the work, no reading or 
writing was permitted me. Except for these causes, the book would have 
appeared much closer upon our Centenary Year, and ere the leading title had 
become so nearly hackneyed. But though the title — selected, I may be ex- 
cused for saying, a considerable time before I had ever seen it used in such an 
application — has lost in freshness, it has lost nothing insignificance; and 
though our Centenary is three years behind us, we are still so on the thresh- 
old of our Second Century, that the book is no less appropriate as an at- 
tempt to indicate something of what our methods and work should be as we 
enter upon it. 

I make no apology for these pages. For nearly forty years, a humble par- 
ticipant in our church- work, I have been not only an observer, but a student 
of our denominational life — our condition, hinderances, needs, prospects. 
I have watched events, and tried to trace effects to causes. These pages re- 
cord my conclusions — conclusions carefully, some of them, unwillingly, 
reached. I wish the presentation had been better done. But for the conclu- 
sions themselves, I plead neither explanation, nor excuse. They are, I be- 
lieve, in the main, impregnable. As such, it is my profound conviction, they 
are what Universalists need, beyond everything else, solemnly to ponder. 
They indicate, I am satisfied, alike the explanations to be considered so far as 
we have failed to witness the practical religious results we had a right to ex- 
pect, and the conditions upon which alone any vitalizing and saving influence 
is possible to us. These being my convictions, I have uttered them as I have ; 
* according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken." 

And having so written, I lay this book as an unpretending offering on the 
altar of our Faith, to suggest what, as it seems to me, the further growth and 
power of our Church demand. I solicit for it the consideration to which it is 
entitled by virtue of the importance of the interests it concerns. The off- 
spring of no hasty impulse, or immature thinking, I ask that it be dealt with 
in no hasty or superficial way. It does but give voice, in such fashion as I 

5 



6 PREFACE. 

could, to what is deepest — and long has been deepest — in many minds and 
hearts among us. Not for the sake of speaking, but under an imperative 
sense of duty, I have spoken frankly, sometimes using "great plainness of 
speech," though in no instance, I trust, speaking otherwise than courteously 
and kindly. If any occasion is seen to criticise or disapprove the book, let it 
be criticised or disapproved in the same spirit. My appeal is to the Bible, and 
reason, and spiritual law — often to simple common sense. In this court, let 
whatever issue is raised be fairly tried. I am content to abide the verdict. 

"Whatever criticism the book may receive, I shall enter into no controversy to 
defend it. For the reasons already mentioned, growing out of the state of my 
health and my impaired eyesight, the work has been done, amidst my par- 
ish cares, at long intervals of time, and in a broken and desultory manner. 
These circumstances have not been favorable to connected writing — on which 
account, any repetitions that may possibly be observed must be pardoned. 
But as to substance, every sentence has been weighed, and what I have writ- 
ten, is written. I think it sufficiently explains and vindicates itself. Let its 
mistakes and errors be exposed — and forgotten. Its truth will take care of 
itself. 

With these introductory words, I commend the book to the blessing of God, 
and to the welcoming sympathy of all who love our Church. May I com- 
mend it, also, to the candor and reflection of those who, not Universalists, 
would know something of Universalism in its present form and tendencies, 
or who, however they may reject some of our conclusions, would find ground 
for giving us recognition and fellowship as one of the divisions of Christ's 
army of redemption ? The time, probably, is not far distant when I shall no 
longer personally labor for our Church on earth. Many years of work for it 
may be — and if such is God's will, I hope are — before me. I have plans for 
other pages, which I would gladly be spared to accomplish. But on the west- 
ern side of the hill, I am not without serious admonitions that my ministry, 
if not my life, may at any moment be ended. And should either event occur 
before I can send forth other pages, I know of no form in which I would rather 
speak my last word than in what is herein said. It is at the same time the 
utterance of my deepest faith, and a testimony of my love for the Church 
into which I was born and to which my whole life has been given. Nor, con- 
sidering what may possibly be said by way of objection to this book, can I 
better close this preface than in words I wrote, in effect, many years ago : — 
Universalism is the highest concern of the world to me. I know, or wish, 
no better work than to labor for it while I live ; and when I am dead, I desire 
no higher praise than to have it said of me, Holding it as the Gospel of Christ, 
he loved and was always faithful to it. 

Philadelphia, 

November 26, 1873. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The New Departure 9 

II. A Survey of the Field 41 

III. The Goodness op God 59 

IV. Bought with a Price 68 

V. Christ Essential * . 76 

VI. Sin 85 

VII. Salvation 99 

VIII. Conversion 112 

IX. Experimental Religion 130 

X. Consecration * 147 

XL The Bible 156 

XII. Prater 175 

XIII. Our Ministry 194 

XIV. The Church 228 

XV. The Sunday School 251 

XVI. Man and Woman 268 

XVII. Unity 285 

XVIII. Giving 293 

XIX. Doing 306 

XX. Three Words 315 

7 



" Come, Holy Spirit, from above, 
And from the realms of light and love 

Thine own bright rays impart. 
Come, Father of the fatherless, 
Come, Giver of all happiness, 

Come, Lamp of every heart. 

" O Thou, of comforters the best, 
O Thou, the soul's most welcome guest, 

O Thou, our sweet repose, 
Our resting-place from life's long care, 
Our shadow from the world's fierce glare, 

Our solace in all woes. 

" Light divine, all light excelling, 
Fill with Thyself the inmost dwelling 

Of souls sincere and lowly : 
Without thy pure divinity, 
Nothing in all humanity, 

Nothing is strong or holy. 

" "Wash out each dark and sordid stain, 
Water each dry and arid plain, 

Raise up the bruised reed. 
Enkindle what is cold and chill, 
Relax the stiff and stubborn will, 

Guide those that goodness need. 

" Give to the good, who find in Thee 
The Spirit's perfect liberty, 

Thy seven-fold power and love. 
Give virtue strength its crown to win, 
Give struggling souls their rest from sin, 
Give endless peace above." 

Veni, Sancte Spiritus, 

Dean Stanley's Translation. 

8 



OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE NEW DEPARTURE. 

Every live movement, in proportion as it is alive, en- 
larges as it proceeds. And so enlarging, it necessarily 
creates constantly new circumstances, out of which grow 
fresh demands. 

The important question concerning every such movement, 
therefore, is, How far will it successively adjust itself to 
these new circumstances, and meet these fresh demands ? 
On the answer to this question, under God, the final 
breadth and power of the movement wholly depend. 

Principles never change. Neither do the ultimate pur- 
poses of any enterprise whose relations and issues have, 
at the outset, been fully perceived. But methods, instru- 
ments, directions of labor, bases of operation must perpet- 
ually change, or weakness and failure ensue. No wise 
commander adheres to any line of march save only with 
reference to his objective point. His tactics vary with the 
progress and varying exigencies of the campaign. Every 
day he studies the situation, to determine his strategy 
accordingly. New departures, by flank, detour, or ad- 
vance, are made after every fight. How else do campaigns 
end in victory ? Or, who doubts the consequence should 
any commander obstinately persist that, as he began, so, 
in every particular, he must push on ? As little is victory 
possible for any movement that aims at growth or conquest, 
except on similar terms. 

9 



10 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

The Universalist movement is no exception to these 
necessities. Of the nature or importance of this move- 
ment it is not requisite here to speak at length. It is 
enough to say that no reasonable words can exaggerate 
what it is, what it has done, or what it may do. Broadly 
viewed, it is, intellectually and morally, the grandest move- 
ment of these last centuries. Since Luther, there is noth- 
ing comparable to it. It was the resurrection of the long- 
slumbering moral consciousness of the Church. It was 
reason and common sense once more re-asserting them- 
selves amidst the contradictions and absurdities of tjie 
creeds. Beginning as a protest of the uneducated popular 
heart against the cold and cruel scholasticism of the tradi- 
tional theology, and providentially designed to give the 
world a more humane and harmonious interpretation of the 
Gospel, it has swept, a modifying and reconstructive power, 
through the realm of opinion, and spread as a subtile influ- 
ence, for the most part unrecognized, but none the less 
actual, permeating society with broader principles, and a 
tenderer and more sympathetic spirit, to an extent that no 
human foresight could have dared anticipate. When John 
Murray was being stoned in Boston, or when his friends in 
Gloucester, or, later still, the handful of Universalists in 
New Hampshire, were battling before the courts for their 
rights as a distinct denomination, had some one ventured to 
predict that in the year 18 70 Universalism would have so 
leavened the country, including even the churches, or that 
the Universalist Church of America would to-day be what 
it is in all the elements of Christian power, none would have 
been more ready than the Universalists themselves to pro- 
nounce him wildly visionary. What has thus been realized, 
seen and unseen, considering the circumstances, is almost 
without parallel. All honor to those who, in any way, have 
helped to make the movement thus potent. A brave and 
sturdy company, for the most part, they have been. Seldom 
has any work had workmen braver, or more deserving the 
world's remembrance. 

But, exalted as are the terms in which this movement is 
to be spoken of, and much as all interested in it have occa- 
sion to be proud of the record which, in most respects, it 



THE NEW DEPARTURE. 11 

has made for itself, it is obvious, in the nature of the case, 
that, if it is to continue effective, its methods must change 
with the changed circumstances it has helped to create. 
What has been cannot suffice for what is, or is to be ; nor 
can the experiment of making it suffice be insisted on, 
except at the peril of the whole movement as thus far organ- 
ized. 

At first, our work was of necessity controversial. Occu- 
pied as the religious field was,- our call was to assail and 
denounce — to oppose, dispute, pull down. We were noth- 
ing if not aggressive. As the consequence, we have ar- 
raigned, discussed and controverted the old theology as 
none others have been willing to do. We have exposed its 
sophisms ; have made manifest its inconsistencies and con- 
tradictions ; have denounced the grossness of its barbarous 
principles, and the fallacy of its narrow assumptions. We 
have wrested from it the Scriptures it has misapplied, and 
have demonstrated by our reiterated expositions — reiter- 
ated, as some have thought, to very weariness — how posi- 
tively the Bible announces quite other conclusions. We 
have shown how reason and conscience, and nature and 
Providence, and every humane instinct, array themselves 
against it. In few words, we have so kept in agitation this 
entire question of God, and man, and destiny, in all its in- 
tellectual, moral, and scriptural aspects and relations, as to 
compel the public attention to it. We have had allies, it is 
true. We readily concede all that can be justly claimed for 
them. But, without stopping now to enumerate them, or to 
analyze the precise ratio of their and our comparative influ- 
ence, it is not too much to allege that we have accomplished 
more than any other one agency — probably more than all 
other agencies combined. There could have been no Ward 
Beecher without Hosea Ballou. The result is obvious. 
That single name — Ward Beecher — better symbolizes it 
than whole volumes could describe it. ' Orthodoxy ' still 
has its nominal believers — many of them ; and considerable 
numbers, despite the growing breadth and liberality, adhere 
immovably to the ancient standards. Dr. Hodge's "Sys- 
tematic Theology," and the recent action of little knots of 
ministers in various localities, are among the latest, as they 



12 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

are sufficient, witnesses of this ; and, looking at catechisms 
and text-books, we may still find many of them as harsh as 
ever. But the sway of the sacrificial system is none the 
less broken. Dr. Hodge's book and the ministerial demon- 
strations no doubt have sympathizers ; and there are those 
who are satisfied with the catechisms and the text-books, or 
they could not hold their place ; but they are anachronisms, 
nevertheless — as little in keeping with the existing drift of 
popular and church thought as Dr. Emmons's cocked hat 
and knee-breeches, if to-day reproduced, would be with the 
present style of dress, or as some extinct monster of the 
Silurian epoch, should it return to perambulate our city 
streets, would be with the life amidst which it would walk. 
Speaking of those portions of the country where our — and 
other — modifying influences have really asserted themselves, 
how many minds, at all considerate, do not now revolt from 
the doctrines which Dr. Hodge is so grimly re-affirming ? 
How many are now affrighted with visions of God's impla- 
cable wrath, or with the smoke and flames of an endless hell ? 
How many, who actually think of God at all, now ever 
think of Him as an arbitrary Sovereign, creating souls on 
purpose to damn them forever, or as a Being who is weakly 
permitting the larger portion of His creation to drift to help- 
less ruin ? Notwithstanding the creeds and catechisms, He 
is now practically thought of as the merciful Friend and 
Father of all ; and the number of intelligent people — in the 
fields referred to — who, without question or reservation, 
believe in the absolute endlessness of sin and suffering, is 
comparatively very small. What is the significance of the 
ministerial demonstrations, — so far as they have any signifi- 
cance, — except that they point to these facts ? Perhaps 
the state of the public mind, in the churches and out, in 
these respects, has never before been put to so significant a 
test as by the recent books of George Macdonald, especially 
his "Robert Falconer." This book is an express onslaught 
against all that is characteristic in 'orthodoxy' and is not 
only saturated with the spirit of Universalism, but is full of 
vigorous and unanswerable arguments for it. But who, or 
how many, have objected to it on these accounts ? News- 
papers and reviews of all shades of opinion have praised it. 



THE NEW DEPARTURE. 13 

The most strenuously ' evangelical y pastors have advised their 
people to read it ; and thousands, of all names and sects, 
have taken it to their hearts as an exceeding refreshment 
and joy. Could this have been forty, or even twenty, years 
ago? Look, too, at the new departure which ' orthodoxy' 
has made in the welcome which all the churches are willing 
to give to Universalists, notwithstanding their Universalism ; 
in the readiness of some of them to tolerate it even in their 
ministers ; and in the larger and kindlier fellowship for Uni- 
versalists which is finding so many advocates. I know a 
prominent Methodist church in whose Sabbath-school an 
avowed Universalist is the teacher of one of the Bible- 
classes ; and the significance of the ordination of the Rev. 
Mr. Jackson among the Congregationalists, and of the 
debate among them and others whether the doctrine of end- 
less woe is, in any real sense, essential, is too clear to be 
mistaken. The old rigors, to a wide extent, have undeni- 
ably softened. 

The circumstances amidst which we have to work, then, 
being so changed, the direction and methods of our work, 
manifestly, if we are to work to best effect, must be modi- 
fied accordingly. Argument and exposition, attack and 
defence, are unquestionably still required as much as ever 
in some localities — in all localities on some occasions. But 
these are no longer our chief business. As well might one 
persist in swinging his axe when only an occasional tree is 
to be felled, and when his pressing need is to till his ground 
for harvests. Not that we have been altogether negligent 
of harvests. It is sometimes charged that we have been ; 
and writers and speakers of our own have not been lacking, 
who, in a culpable neglect to qualify and discriminate, have 
joined in the charge. But any such representation, come it 
whence it may, is false, and does us great injustice. We 
have had earnest affirmative aims ; and our organization, 
now so complete, but attained only after so many j^ears of 
struggle and experiment, is demonstrative proof that we 
have sought to build as well as to tear down. But what 
harvests have we chiefly cultivated ? To what ends have 
we mainly built ? For the awakening of the thoughtless ? 
For the conversion of sinners ? For the salvation of souls ? 



14 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

For these ends to some extent, certainly ; and those there 
have been among us — in number not a few — second to 
none in the devotion and energy with which they have 
given themselves to such work. But can it be said that 
this has been the general animus, the characteristic spirit of 
our Universalist effort ? On the contrary, while it would be 
slanderous to say that there has been no thought — or even 
to say that there has not been a good deal of thought — 
among us with reference to these ends, has not our labor, as 
the rule, concerned doctrines more than souls, except, of 
course, as it has always been understood that it is for, the 
interest of souls to know the truth ? Has not our effort 
been to convince the head that ' orthodoxy ' is not true, 
and that God is good, and that all men are to be saved, 
rather than so to present the fact of God's persistent and 
pleading love, and of the ultimate repentance and obedience 
of all, as to convict the heart of sin, to quicken the con- 
science to a sense of guilt, and to bring the people, in peni- 
tence and a confession of personal need and obligation, to 
their knees ? In a word, has not our labor been theological 
more than experimental, aiming to make Christian Univer- 
salists, and to build and consolidate a Universalist denomi- 
nation, rather than to make Universalist Christians, com- 
pacted and consecrated in the Universalist Church ? It is 
believed that no contradiction is hazarded in saying that 
these last questions can be truthfully answered only in the 
affirmative. The deepest and most interior meanings of 
Christ's work have never been wholly overlooked among 
us ; but, as the rule, we have given more attention to the 
fact that he is to save, than to the question, How ? 

When I entered the ministry (1836), and for several years 
after, I found few with any clear and settled answer for this 
question, How ? — for the reason that it was generally held 
to be of only incidental importance ; and I well remember 
with what a trembling sense of treading on very uncertain 
— and almost forbidden — ground, I ventured once to read 
an essay in which — in a very crude way, as I now see — I 
had tried to work out some answer to this question for my 
own satisfaction. It was not until some time after the pub- 
lication of Dr. Ballou's weighty and every way admirable 



THE NEW DEPARTURE. 15 

paper on 

the " Expositor " of January, 1840, that the misty and inco- 
herent state of thought on this subject began to give place 
to a more distinct and intelligent view. And even since, as 
before, that paper — which did more than any other one 
thing to clarify and systematize our denominational thinking 
on this point — the very large proportion of our ministers 
and people have been much more occupied with the certainty 
than with the method of salvation. God and what He has 
purposed, rather than man and the conditions which he must 
fulfil, have constituted the burden of our thought ; and 
while our pulpit — from which have spoken a succession of 
men, as a whole, second to no others in purity and unselfish 
zeal — has been filled with argument in the direction of 
faith, more than with unction in the direction of conversion 
and work, our people • have been intelligent, conscientious, 
benevolent, morally reputable, comfortably confident that 
everything is to come out rightly at last, rather than pious, 
prayerful, spiritually vital, eagerly asking, "Men and breth- 
ren, what shall we &0V 

Nor, however much there may be in all this to regret, 
could it, in the nature of the case, have been otherwise. 
Consider the facts. The entire theory of God and the uni- 
verse, when our movement began, and for many subsequent 
years, was such as to insult every rational and moral in- 
stinct, and to render all that bore the name of religion 
unattractive, if not a disgust. Chiefest of all, perhaps, an 
appalling uncertainty hung over the future. Nothing was 
definite. Above no grave could a sure word of prophecy 
be uttered. Not even to the saintliest soul, it was thought, 
was there authority to say, " Fear not : " for time and eter- 
nity, God is your Friend. Ours it was to pour light into 
this darkness. The word providentially put upon our lips 
was, Look up : God rules in infinite love, and Christ, as his 
messenger, will certainly triumph. Was it strange that, at 
first, we were mainly engrossed with the errors we opposed, 
and the glad tidings we proclaimed ? Recalling how we 
were not only doctrinally assailed, but personally maligned, 
misrepresented, denounced as the religious pariahs of the 
country, the enemies of God and all good, would it not 



16 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

have been remarkable if we had had much thought for any- 
thing* save the assertion and justification of our truth on the 
one hand, and the arraignment of ' orthodoxy ' and its 
mischievous power on the other ? And, full of our message 
of certainty, as we had occasion to be amidst the prevailing 
suspense and gloom, is it surprising that we did not always 
stop carefully to weigh in detail all the conditions involved 
in the result we heralded, or to emphasize the personal 
spiritual necessities it imposed ? 

But it is one of God's methods that every work educates 
its workers. So our work has been educating us. More 
and more, as the years have passed, the conditions upon 
which all moral results depend have been asserting them- 
selves in our thought. The question, How ? or, What have 
we to do ? has commanded continually increasing attention. 
And now, entering upon the second century of our history, 
we have, as a body, very generally reached conclusions in 
the light of which the answer to this question assumes 
momentous importance. What we are at this point to 
determine is, whether or not this answer shall have the 
enforcement its importance calls for. Not that we are to 
lose any interest in the grand fact in which Universalism 
culminates. We are to abate nothing from the emphasis or 
the constancy with which we proclaim it. To do so would 
be to abandon the position we have conquered, and to re- 
linquish the chief element of our power. The Gospel of 
Jesus Christ, without the doctrine of his certain ultimate 
triumph in the conquest of sin and the reconciliation of all 
souls to God, is the arch without the keystone, is the lever 
without the fulcrum, is the sky without the sun, is the body 
without the soul. But, while this result must still have its 
due place, its cognate — and, in their place, no less impor- 
tant — facts must have greater prominence. What is to 
precede this result, and what, therefore, it implies as an 
antecedent experience and purpose in every soul, must be 
more urgently pressed. In other words, the demand is 
that, more keenly apprehending and appreciating the inner- 
most significance and personal requirements of the truth we 
teach, we shall take another step forward in the adoption of 
such methods of labor as the spiritual facts underlying what 



THE NEW DEPARTURE. IT 

we affirm suggest and require ; and on our decision in re- 
spect to this demand our future influence and fortune as a 
Church are suspended. 

Another step forward, I say ; for it is no new thing for us 
to take a " new departure " denominationally. As was in- 
timated in opening, it is the law of all live movements thus 
to go forward by stages, either because principles are grad- 
ually more clearly perceived, or because of a ripening un- 
derstanding as to the best instruments. There were such 
new departures in the apostolic church, as when Peter, after 
the vision of the sheet, went and preached to Cornelius and 
his friends ; as when Paul and Barnabas, being rejected of 
the Jews, "turned to the Gentiles.' 7 Every church which 
has grown in the apprehension of its truth, or profited by 
its experience, has had similar new departures. We have 
had them with the rest. Let us look back a moment, and 
see what they have been. 

There are four well-defined periods in the history of our 
Church, each successively marking the new departures we 
have made: — 1. The patristic period, during which the 
whole type of thought and faith was ' orthodox/ with the 
single exception of the doctrine of universal salvation ; 
2. The period of transition, extending from 1795 to (per- 
haps) 1818, during which the ' orthodox ? type of faith 
was supplanted by the Unitarian theory of God and the 
atonement, and related points (so making us the first body 
of Unitarian Christians in the country), the doctrine of 
"future punishment' 7 being still retained; 3. The Ballou- 
ian period, extending from 181*7-18 to (perhaps) 1845, 
during which the. influence of Mr. Ballou was dominant, and 
his theory as to the immediate felicity of all souls at death 
became the general sentiment of our body ; 4. The period 
of reaction, -extending from 1845 to the present time, during 
which Father Ballou's theory has, in its turn, been gener- 
ally superseded, and, as Dr. Ballou once phrased it, "the 
current of opinion has run in favor of a moral connection 
of the present life with the future." 

Here, then, we have four distinct departures : — the first, 
our departure from ' orthodoxy/ and each of the others a 
departure, quite as marked, from grouud we had been occu- 
2 



18 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

pying, to a new position. Each of these was an advance. 
Putting their own interpretation upon them, our friends of 
other churches talk much of our shifting theology ; and, 
suiting themselves in their assumptions thereupon, they 
moralize, greatly to their own satisfaction, on the instability 
of error, holding up their hands in wonder at the fatuity 
which imagines that a system so vacillating can have any 
future. It is easy at any time to retort by pointing these 
friends to their own shifting positions, some of them fatal 
to the very substance of their theology. But, not now to 
step aside for this, it is sufficient to say that these several 
departures warrant no such unfavorable inferences. They 
are only the stages through which our Church has grown 
into the perception of the adjuncts and relations of its basic 
truth. It is the fortune of all truth, history teaches, to be 
progressively perceived and formulated. The apostles 
walked personally with Christ as their instructor, but who 
of them at once understood the spiritual and universal pur- 
pose of the Gospel ? So with Luther's followers : how 
many on the instant took in the full scope of his principles, 
or the meaning of his work ? And so of all crusades against 
error or wrong, and all moral or spiritual reforms. Of which 
of them, that has attained any considerable proportions, has 
the deepest significance ever been perceived by those who 
have first burned and thrilled with its new message, or 
fought and 'roughed it' in its earlier battles ? In common 
with all great movements of thought, or religious life, we, 
as a Church, have only illustrated the natural order of things. 
We have not happened. Nothing in our history is the 
result of accident. We have come of laws as absolute as 
gravitation, or any law of growth ; and these successive 
changes or departures simply show how Universalism has 
been historically developed. They indicate no modification 
of final principles, and therefore justify no reflections as to 
the fickleness of our theology in respect to such principles. 
They only show the different phases of interpretation and 
statement in which other and more purely modal principles 
have been held upon these as their common foundation, 
much as the varieties of soil and vegetable growth on the 
globe have no significance as to what is primary in its struc- 



THE NEW DEPARTURE. 19 

tare, only as to what has, from time to time, been deposited 
upon its surface. Whether God exists in one or in three 
persons or manifestations ; whether he is so sovereign that 
all human action is necessitated, or so sovereign as to leave 
action free ; whether sin is exclusively of the flesh, or of 
the soul ; whether the character we here form has all its 
moral importance in this world, or goes, with its conse- 
quences, into the future, — these and like inquiries are very 
grave, and, in a sense, vital. But they are not primal ; 
they do not touch bottom, like those which concern the 
character of God, and the spirit and issues of his govern- 
ment. In respect to these, Universalism has never changed. 
On other points, differences have been numerous, and opin- 
ion has fluctuated, and our theology has been protean in its 
forms, so that the Universalist Church has, at various peri- 
ods, stood for quite diverse ideas. But as regards these 
final principles, there has been no difference or fluctuation. 
Murray, and Ballou, and Turner, and Hosea Ballou 2d, and 
all whom they represent, have clasped hands, in one un- 
broken line, in the unity of a faith "without variableness, 
or the shadow of turning ; " and, from the hour of its in- 
ception till now, the Universalist Church has steadily stood 
for precisely the same thing, viz., the impartial and immiuta- 
ble love of God, destined surely to triumph through Christ in 
the ultimate redemption of all soids. Our successive depart- 
ures, it thus appears, have been simply as to the form, 
never as to the substance, of faith. Instead, therefore, of 
furnishing any occasion for adverse criticism, they have 
quite another meaning'. Fossils never grow. Only live 
things develop and mature. These departures reveal the 
processes of our spiritual evolution. That reactions, crudi- 
ties, and various fanciful and extreme opinions, should 
appear, was inevitable in such a breaking up of old beliefs 
as the past hundred years have witnessed ; and it speaks 
honorably for the vitality and elasticity of our Church that, 
amidst these things, while immovably fixed as to our funda- 
mental faith, we have been, each for himself, so free to 
search God's word, and to follow the light given us. Thus, 
enslaved by no creeds and hindered by no traditions, 
thought has clarified, our great principles have gradually 



20 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

pushed themselves into fuller and clearer expression, the 
relations and proportions of truth have become more and 
more manifest, till, as the result, logic, sentiment, the 
Bible, and spiritual law having contributed each its part, 
Universalism stands forth rounded and balanced into the 
coherent and harmonious system it is. 

And now, having attained to so much through our several 
preceding departures, the time — returning to our statement 
— has fully come for another step forward. Hitherto, our 
departures have been mainly doctrinal, though naturally 
they have each somewhat affected our type of life and 
methods of labor. That to which we are now called is 
vital and experimental. It is demanded of us that, having 
reached certain definite conclusions, we shall distinctly and 
systematically give ourselves to a style of work and appeal such 
as they logically suggest and require. There is no room for 
doubt as to what has come to be the predominant conviction 
of our body. It is that death, as such, works no moral 
change ; that character is continuous, except as moral agen- 
cies modify it ; and that salvation, being a change of charac- 
ter, is possible anywhere only as the result of such agencies, 
acting through faith and penitence, and inducing self-surren- 
der. There was a period in our history when these were 
regarded as debatable positions. With the most of us, that 
period some time ago ceased ; and these positions are now 
held to be axiomatic truths, as little open to legitimate 
debate or question as the fact that there is such a thing as 
character, or that mechanical or chemical causes are incom- 
petent to produce moral effects. And, this being so, should 
not these conclusions give inspiration and purpose to our 
ministry, and be henceforth the basis of our systematic effort 
as a Church ? 

Is it said that there are those, — among them brethren 
honored and beloved, — with their equal rights in our fel- 
lowship, who do not yet accept these conclusions? But 
are these brethren more honored or beloved, or more enti- 
tled to hold back our Church from the kind of labor befitting 
its general convictions, than were Murray and his coadju- 
tors, when, notwithstanding they adhered to the old theo- 
ries, the denomination, under the lead of Ballou and Turner, 



THE NEW DEPARTURE. 21 

planted itself on the Unitarian platform ? or than were 
Turner, and Dean, and Loveland, and Willis, and Hosea 
Ballou 2d, and those in sympathy with them, when, follow- 
ing" Father Ballou, the denomination so generally committed 
itself to the 'no-future punishment' theory ? The question 
as to what a church shall do is never — or ought never to 
be — a question of persons, but always of principles; and 
the equal rights of those who no longer represent the pre- 
vailing sentiment of the body are summed up in the right to 
hold, and with entire freedom to state and defend, what seems 
to them the truth. On no just plea, surely, either of cour- 
tesy or of right, can the exceptional claim to annul or over- 
ride the common in determining the tone and purpose of a 
church. 

It is the law of every developing movement, of whatever 
nature, that the thought and methods of each stage in its 
progress must in turn give way to those of the stage succeed- 
ing. This has been signally manifest in our history. With 
its peculiar philosophy and scriptural interpretations, each 
of our four periods has had its peculiar processes of argu- 
ment, and, equally, its peculiar methods of labor and appeal. 
Was it, in either of these periods, in any sense a violation of 
the rights of — or a disregard of what was due to — those 
still holding the philosophy and interpretations of former 
periods, that methods and appeals in keeping with its own 
convictions were supplanting those of the period preceding? 
Clearly, the only rule in any such case is that the predom- 
inating convictions of a church must of right give character 
and direction to its life and work. 

Hence alike the propriety and necessity of the New De- 
parture herein contemplated. Many among us have al- 
ready, individually, taken this departure ; and the tone and 
methods of our Church are, in important respects, to-day 
very different from what they were twenty years ago. But 
notwithstanding these changes, and though the Ballouian 
philosophy has been generally discarded, we are still, as a 
church, mainly in the ruts of the Ballouian period as to 
methods and appeals. What is now required of us is that 
we leave these ruts, and, in a concerted and systematic direc- 
tion of our labor, strike out into aims and efforts better cor- 



22 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

responding with the existing state of our denominational 
thought : — just as Murray, Adam Streeter, and Rich followed 
their convictions, and struck out from orthodoxy ; just as 
Ballou and Turner struck out from Murray ; and just as 
Ballou, loyal to his new views, struck out from himself and 
Turner. New wine must be put into new bottles ; and if, 
as is indisputable, the current of new or modified conclusions 
is running through our Church, we must adjust our wheels and 
give direction to our machinery with distinct reference to 
the power thus supplied. 

Conceding the soundness of these new or modified con- 
clusions, what but this can we do, if, as the stewards of God, 
we would be faithful ? Are we not imperfectly administer- 
ing the Gospel, and culpably neglecting important spiritual 
leverage, so far as we fail duly to use the means of influence 
thus placed at our command ? If what is thus affirmed be 
true, death in itself is a concern only of the body ; it inter- 
rupts or cancels no spiritual law ; and hence nothing is to 
be expected from it in the way of release from moral penalty, 
or a more facile admission to the company of the just, since 
it puts no man into any easier or more desirable relations 
with God, and absolves no one from any condition on which 
salvation here depends. The good man disembodied, pass- 
ing into the more manifest presence of God, loses none of 
his moral attributes ; is a good man there, precisely as he 
was a good man here — that is, in the activity of his own 
moral faculties ; and because, carrying in himself the harvest 
of his prayers and saintly endeavors, he still loves and 
chooses to go forward in the good life. The bad man, just 
as certainly, passing on in like manner, loses none of his 
impiety, selfishness, or sin in the passage ; is inevitably 
the same bad man at his first moment of consciousness on 
the other side as he was at his last moment of consciousness 
here. He leaves his body behind, but nothing of what he 
morally was, because character is not of the body, but of 
the soul. Character, as the one actual thing in us, is to 
be changed, here or hereafter, only by our own moral choice. 
Death has no alchemy to touch it. True, death does strip 
off the flesh, from the suggestions and lusts of which char- 
acter for evil to some extent here comes, and in the use of 



THE NEW DEPARTURE. 23 

which character here manifests itself. It does introduce us 
into new circumstances, amidst new, and probably mightier, 
influences ; and precisely how these are to affect us, — of 
what awakenings and uplifting impulses and resolves they 
are to be the occasion, or what ' disinthralment of our spirit- 
ual powers ' is thus to follow, no one can certainly say. It 
is reasonable to anticipate something from the facts to be 
thus taken into account, though in respect to these things, 
he is the wisest man who dogmatizes least. But in itself, 
death is simply transition, with no transmuting moral effi- 
cacy. Except, therefore, as the bad man, passing on, puts 
off sin and rises into a new character, just as he was called 
to put off sin and rise into a new character here, the curse 
of sin, so far as he was a sinner, still abides upon him, and 
will abide, — perhaps intensified as he stands consciously 
revealed in the sight of God and before the tribunal of the 
Saviour. 

And these things being true, are they things to be ig- 
nored, or put to no use ? On the contrary, how grave is 
their import, and how urgent the need of wise action for 
ourselves and others which they enforce ! We have some- 
thing, they show us, indefinitely at stake upon the charac- 
ters we here form. Our salvation, under God, is in our own 
hands. There is peril in carelessness and sin — not for time 
only, but beyond. Faith, penitence, and prayer, what we 
mean by spiritual culture and the Christian life, are not merely 
things of a few days' concern to us here, to be with impunity 
balanced against the listlessness, or the imagined pleasures 
of a worldly or godless life, if we are willing to wait for 
death to put us right. Death cannot put us right ; and these 
are things, therefore, on our wise choice concerning which, 
here and now, unspeakable interests hang: just as " now, 
while it is called to-day, " our welfare is suspended on any 
decision we are called to make between right and wrong ; 
just as always something is every hour at stake on our 
choice of action as to what the next hour our experience and 
character are to be. Choosing right in respect to God and 
the Saviour, every day of thoughtfulness and growing spirit- 
uality is so much gained towards that life and felicity which 
are to be perfected in heaven. Choosing wrong, every day 



24 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

of indifference, unbelief, or sin is a day of darkness, of 
hardening sensibility, of shrivelling capacity, of increasing 
spiritual emptiness and death — stretching on, on, so long- 
as our choice is perverse, or we fail to cry out for God, and 
to turn our faces towards Him. If, then, mere physical 
paralysis, destitution, blindness, or pain be a thing for us 
to shrink from ourselves, or demanding our effort for its re- 
lief and cure in others, how much more this darkness, pov- 
erty, and death of the soul ! What penalties such a condition 
incurs, on the other side of death no less surely than here ! 
What hazards are thus involved ! What judgments invited ! 
What losses sustained ! What suffering chosen ! And all 
this being granted, is any ministry or any church faithful, 
which, holding these convictions, declines to conduct its 
labors and frame its appeals accordingly ? 

The reference just now made to them sufficiently shows 
that I am not unmindful of those among us who have not 
yet accepted this general view, and some' of whom oppose 
it as a serious error. With these brethren, however, I have 
here no debate. " Let every man be fully persuaded in his 
own mind." I am not now making an argument, — only stat- 
ing a position, and what consistency with it requires. My 
concern, therefore, is wholly with those who do accept this 
view, that I may illustrate with what emphasis all such of 
us are called of God and the welfare of souls, to use the con- 
clusions we have reached, as, if they are true, their impor- 
tance demands. 

We have been, for many years, proceeding upon a false 
assumption. Contenting ourselves with a general, and often 
vigorous, enforcement of truth and duty by such sanctions 
as the present furnishes, we have quite extensively taken it 
for granted that any attempt to influence conduct by con- 
siderations drawn from its consequences, one way or another, 
in tlie future world, is somehow inconsistent with our funda- 
mental principle that we must do right because it is right, 
and not from any mercenary motive. But what is there to 
justify this assumption ? That we are to do right because 
it is right, is certain. Equally certain is it that to do right, 
or to abstain from doing wrong, solely because of reward or 
punishment anywhere, is, in either case, to be a hireling, 



THE NEW DEPARTURE. 25 

rendering to God no acceptable service. But are the con- 
sequences of action to be, therefore, put altogether out of 
the case ? Why, then, does God so constantly appeal to 
them ? Is He seeking to determine action on false princi- 
ples ? It is only in view of its consequences that the in- 
trinsic nature of any course is to be best understood. How 
are pupils fully to appreciate what knowledge and ignorance 
respectively are, as related to their welfare, if teachers are 
never to urge them to diligence by explaining the blessings 
of the former and the penalties of the latter ? Or, how are 
children to understand what industry or virtue is for its 
own sake, if they are never to be told of the disabilities of 
poverty, or the advantages of wealth, or if the disgrace and 
wretchedness of vice, and the beauty and joy of a good life, 
are to be forbidden themes in their instruction ? Universal- 
ists have never been backward in proclaiming the certain 
earthly consequences of action, both of penalty aud reward ; 
and if any consequences may be legitimately appealed to, 
why not all ? If consequences here, why not, with equal 
propriety, — it being granted that there are such, — conse- 
quences hereafter ? Why should death be the line across 
which the appeal must not reach ? or how can the whole 
case be fairly made up, either in favor of a Christian life, or 
against a godless one, except as all that both involve is 
duly exhibited ? 

Paul shows us the true method. It is needless to say 
that he would persuade no man to a mercenary discipleship. 
It is quite as needless to remind those for whom these chap- 
ters are specially penned how decided were his convictions 
as to the results of God's government. Nothing was more cer- 
tain to him than that Christ is to " put down all rule, and all 
authority, and power " antagonistic to God, and that God is 
thus to be " all in all." In his distinct foresight of this issue, 
and therefore in the assurance that his " labor was not in vain 
in the Lord," he found that which constantly sustained and 
inspired him ; which, when he was weak, made him strong, 
and, amidst hostilities and discouragements, lifted him, un- 
appalled, into victory. But with no less distinctness, he 
saw, too, the conditions precedent, and his sermons and 
epistles attest the zeal and constancy with which he empha- 



26 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

sized these conditions, and with a soul all aglow, called 
those whom he addressed to the thoughtfulness and effort 
required. See what he says in his figure of the Christian 
race, Philippians iii. 1-16 ; and again, in his First Letter to 
Timothy, vi. 9-19 ; and still again, in his Second Epistle, iw 
5-8. See especially the picture he gives of himself, and of 
his motives, in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, v. 1—11, 
and particularly in these words : " Wherefore we labor, 
that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of 
him. For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of 
Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his 
body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or 
bad. Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we per- 
suade men.''* Repeated attempts have been made to show 
that this language has no allusion to immortality, and thus to 
turn aside the point the Apostle makes. As well might one 
allege that this whole grand connection is only a pleasant 
talk about an intended visit to some fair island in the Medi- 
terranean ! The theme unmistakably is our passage out of 
the mortal into the immortal realm ; and the point is, that 
there as well as here, an acceptance with Christ is some- 
thing to be won. This acceptance, the Apostle gives us to 
understand, does not come as a matter of course. It is not 
something indiscriminately given, without regard to antece- 
dent conduct or character. It is something accorded only 
to those who struggle for it. The Apostle represents him- 
self as struggling for it, therefore — in no mercenary spirit, 
but in a spirit of earnest aspiration towards harmony with 
God and the Redeemer. 

And mark what it is in view of which he not only thus 
struggles himself, but is moved to persuade and animate 
others : " For we must all appear before the judgment-seat 
of Christ. . . . Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, 
we persuade men." This does not mean that he had, for 
the moment, forgotten the love of God, nor that he would 
frighten anybody into religious living. It means simply 
that he recognized the continuousness of Christ's offices 
of instruction and judgment ; that he perceived severities 
as well as tenderness in God's dealings ; facts to arouse 
and startle as well as to attract and comfort. Considering 



THE NEW DEPARTURE. 27 

these things, and looking- forward to the conscious reve- 
lation of souls; as, released from the environments of the 
flesh, they pass into the personal presence of the Redeemer, 
for approval or condemnation according to the character in 
which they there appear, he caught a new impulse to plead 
with and persuade men, that they would give themselves 
in holiness to God. 

And administering the same Gospel as Paul, can we do 
better than to administer it in the same way ? He sought 
not to hire or terrify. Such effort belonged neither to 
his moral philosophy, nor to his theory of a regenerate life. 
It belongs as little to ours. It is "the goodness of God" 
that " leadeth to repentance/' he declared ; and we accept 
the statement as the fundamental axiom he meant it to be. 
The soul is. moved for its redemption only by that which 
awakens conscience and takes hold of the affections. But 
there is something terrible in a life of sin, in absence from 
God, in spiritual insensibility, collapse and decay ; there 
is something beautiful and blessed in a life of faith, and love, 
and heavenly sympathy, and divine communion ; and to 
portray the peril of the one and the attractions of the other, 

— to emphasize the permanence of spiritual law, and the 
unescapable certainty of its retributions, — to tell men that 
God will never deal with them for their salvation in any 
mechanical way, as if they were things, but that they must 
work out their own salvation, in the use of His helps, as 
accountable souls, — to insist that the consequences of a 
material or atheistic life must, in the nature of things, con- 
tinue until such a life, by one's own choice, is repented of 
and abandoned, — to preach that the judgment-seat of Christ 
is erected wherever souls are answerable to him, and that, 
passing out of the flesh, we pass into his immediate pres- 
ence, to experience in his approval and the spiritual harmo- 
nies of our own being, or in his condemnation and our own 
self-condemnation, the fruits of what we have done and are, 

— to do either or all of these things is not to attempt to ter- 
rify or to hire. It is simply to state facts, as most of us 
believe — that those whom we seek to influence may be in- 
duced to act wisely in view of them. It is, indeed, to pro- 
ceed upon the identical principle on which those proceed 



28 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

who most protest against any appeal to consequences in the 
future world, as often as they take up the burden of the 
Bible, and say with the prophet, " It shall be well with the 
righteous, for they shall eat the fruit of their doings/' or, 
"• Woe unto the wicked ! for the reward of his hands shall 
be given him." 

In view, then, of these several considerations, has not the 
time fully come when, appreciating the nature of our posi- 
tion, and the demands of the principles and conclusions we 
hold, we shall go forward in the New Departure which has 
here been outlined ? 

Three things are likely to be urged by way of objection : — 
1. It will be said by some that we shall thus be ' imita- 
ting/ or ' going over to the orthodox/ But for any such 
plea, I confess my utter want of respect. It has already 
done us much mischief;" and if we have any conscience, or 
common sense, we shall henceforth treat it with the con- 
tempt it deserves. God has given us a work. What is it 
to us whom we 'imitate/ or to whom we 'go over/ if 
it is but clear that we are following the indications of His 
Providence as to the best means of doing it? Our business 
is to be faithful ; and if anywhere there is truth for us to 
learn, or serviceable action for us to copy, we are recreant 
to our trust if we do not make the most of it. Who are we 
that we should assume to be above profiting by the experi- 
ence of others ? Or, who are we that, wherever a truth 
may be found which we have not accepted, or which for any 
reason we have failed duly to enforce, we should draw our- 
selves up in a pompous self-sufficiency, and say, We will 
have none of it ? Our duty is to harvest instruction from 
every possible field, be it Romanism, or Methodism, Presby- 
terianism, Episcopalianism, or any other branch of the one 
common Church of Christ. ' Orthodoxy/ as organized in 
all these forms, has much to teach us. We shall wickedly 
stultify ourselves if we refuse to learn. 

But the step here advocated is no ' imitation ' of any^ 
body, and no ' going over ; to anybody. It implies only 
consistency with the logic of our own convictions. We 
have our pronounced principles. These involve certain 
definite practical conclusions ; and these, again, suggest 



THE NEW DEPASTURE. 29 

and enjoin certain motives and appeals equally definite. 
The simple question is, whether we will be true to ourselves 
and to the interests of souls in the use of the moral instru- 
mentalities thus put into our hands. 

There is a sense, I have no doubt, in which all Protes- 
tant churches are approaching each other. The ' evangel- 
icals ' are moving towards us, theologically : we are mov- 
ing towards them, in a wiser distribution of our empha- 
sis, and in a better choice of methods. In the name of the 
dear Christ who would have us all one, let the good work 
go on. Let us make the most of our agreements, and be 
alienated as little as may be by our differences. So will the 
unity the Master prayed for come ; and over every partition- 
wall broken down and every difference removed, and as 
every new sign appears, telling that the now sundered 
members of Christ's body are becoming more "fitly joined 
together ... to the edifying of itself in love/ 7 let every 
good man shout, Thank God ! — as every angel in heaven 
will surely say, Amen ! 

Any accord of ours with ' orthodoxy ' — as to methods, 
however, let it be understood, argues no accord in doctrine. 
The methods belong to Christianity, — not to ' orthodoxy ; ' 
and to approach 'orthodoxy 7 — not byway of imitation, 
but in a clearer apprehension of what the best administra- 
tion of the Gospel requires, ■ — in the use of these common 
Christian methods, is one thing ; — to approach it in princi- 
ple or ultimate conclusion, is quite another. We thus ap- 
proach it in principle or conclusion, only when we limit the 
extent of salvation, or materialize its substance. We do 
not so approach it, however we may emphasize the fact that 
salvation has its conditions. ' Orthodoxy/ partial, arbi- 
trary, judicial in spirit, proceeds on one plane of principle 
and purpose, to one end. The conception of Christianity 
which we represent, impartial and parental, proceeds on a 
very different plane, to a very different end. One counts 
law, the other counts souls, as God's paramount care. 
That thinks chiefly of vengeance, miscalled justice ; this of 
reconciliation. That makes it its business to save souls 
from hell ; this to deepen and magnify a sense of the intrin- 
sic peril and curse of wrong. That points to Christ as cur 



30 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

substitute in the endurance of the penalty of God's law, and 
calls us to faith in him as the expedient to get us into 
heaven when we die ; this presents Christ as the messenger 
of God's love and truth, and calls us to faith in him as the 
power of God to build up heaven within ourselves wherever 
we may be. That seeks to have us ' make our peace witl 
God ' by doing something to change His feelings and atti- 
tude towards us ; this by quickening us to a change of feel- 
ing and attitude towards Him. And, finally, that portray s 
a flaming abyss which God has built for the endless tor- 
ture of sinners after death, and, leading us to its brink, 
essays to terrify us into a religious life ; this shows first 
that all separation from God, or lack of sympathy with Him, 
is darkness, death, and hell, and then, proclaiming that the 
mere decease of the body avails nothing to release us from 
it, seeks to persuade us by the love of God and the Saviour, 
by the blessings of goodness and by the curse of sin, to 
turn straightway to God through Christ, since, whether 
present or absent, in the flesh or out, he is the sole gate 
into a divine acceptance and the best life. 

It is clear, then, that the New Departure here urged in 
no way involves any sacrifice of our Universalist identity. 
It means sirnpty a consistent enforcement of our own princi- 
ples, in no assimilation to ' orthodoxy,' except that we are 
to be willing to profit by every example of earnestness, of 
systematic and effective work, and of whole-hearted conse- 
cration, wherever it may appear. They, it is worth while 
to remark in passing, are the only Universalists at all open 
to the charge of approaching the old ' orthodoxy ' in prin- 
ciple, who insist that salvation is something to be conferred 
upon us at death without any condition of faith or effort, 
here or elsewhere, on our part. 

2. It will be alleged, perhaps, that the New Departure 
here urged involves a cessation of our doctrinal work. But 
it is not so. I have already said that we are to abate noth- 
ing from the emphasis or constancy with which we proclaim 
our grand result, and that argument and exposition, attack 
and defence, will still bo required ; and as to our work of 
Christian teaching, I have seriously failed in what I intended, 
if it has not been implied, as the underlying thought of all 



THE NEW DEPARTURE. 31 

that has been said, that this is, of course, to proceed. 
What is contemplated in this plea for a New Departure, as 
will more fully appear in the chapters that are to follow, is 
— only less of antagonism, denial, and controversy, for 
mere doctrinal ends, and a great deal more of affirmative, 
constructive, applying labor, for vital and practical re- 
sults. 

I am free to confess, indeed, that there seems to '•me to be 
little occasion for us to preach doctrine as a means of indu- 
cing a rejection of the sacrificial theology, or of making con- 
verts to Universalist ideas. Numerous outside agencies are 
rapidly doing these things for us. Years ago one of our 
thoughtful laymen (Ex-Governor Washburn), speaking of 
such agencies, truly said that they are accomplishing more 
for Universalism, in these respects, than Universalists 
themselves. But large numbers, including not a few who 
bear the Universalist name, have only the crudest concep- 
tions of what Universalism is. The grounds, relations, 
and arguments of the truth, and the meaning of the Bible as 
bearing upon it, are not understood. For these reasons, 
Universalism should still be preached as a doctrine. And 
there is another reason. Universalism, we believe, is only 
another name for Christianity ; and Christianity, though it 
culminates in a life, is, in essence, a system of principles — 
that is, of doctrines. Hence only as these doctrines are ap- 
prehended is Christianity apprehended, or can it become 
most effectually a power for the salvation of souls. To 
preach about Christianity, or about what it requires, is not 
to preach Christianity, nor for the fulfilment of Christian 
ends. Christianity is preached only as its doctrines are 
preached, and only thus are the materials and inspiration 
for the Christian life supplied. " Sanctify them through thy 
truth" was our Lord's prayer for his disciples ; and we 
never find him or his apostles preaching for the conversion 
and sanctification of men except by preaching doctrines as 
the basis of the precepts they enjoined. They preached prin- 
ciples, and not about principles, showing men how and why 
to be good, instead of talking about goodness. And what 
was wise in them is no less wise in us. Nor can we, or 
any other church, do God's work of translating His truth 



32 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

into life, except as they sought to do it — upon a doctrinal 
foundation. 

But observe, they never preached doctrine simply as doc- 
trine, nor with reference to any mere intellectual contest or 
victory. Neither should we. They preached it only to 
rebuke sin, and impel to holiness. We should preach it 
only for the same purpose. Like theirs, our business is to 
quicken and save souls. What the time and the world 
most call for is moral inspiration. It is important what one 
believes concerning" God, and the spirit and issues of His 
government. But the question of transcendent concern is, 
not whether one believes in Universalism, but whether, 
believing it, or professing to believe it, he is showing him- 
self experimentally a believer. Is he filled with a sense of 
obligation to God and the Saviour ? Is he a man of prayer ? 
Does he abhor sin ? Is he melted and humbled at the foot 
of the cross ? Does his soul glow with religious affection ? 
Is his being instinct with spiritual life ? These are the 
only results for which any church has a right to exist ; and 
only to produce these should we preach doctrine, or any- 
thing else. 

This is the fact to which the New Departure here outlined 
would call attention : not to induce any neglect or over- 
sight of doctrine, but that the purpose of all Christian 
teaching may be more distinctly recognized, and that Uni- 
versalism as a doctrine may be so conceived and adminis- 
tered as to do more in religiously quickening souls, and 
leading them to God. 

3. The other objection I anticipate is, that what is here 
proposed is no new departure at all. This may come from 
two entirely opposite quarters. 

On the one hand, those in sympathy with the general pur- 
pose here in view may say that what is urged should not be 
spoken of as a 'new departure/ for the reason that so to 
designate it is to fail to do justice to the actual condition of 
our church-thought, is to overlook what has already oc- 
curred, and is thus to imply what is not true. What is 
proposed, they may say, has been for a considerable time in 
progress ; and for themselves, they may add, they took the 
departure long ago. But if these brethren will turn back a 



THE NEW DEPARTURE. 33 

few pages (p. 21), they will see that I have distinctly said 
that many among us have already individually taken this 
departure, and that, in important respects, the tone and 
methods of our Church to-day are very different from what 
they were twenty years ago. Moreover, the whole plea I 
here make proceeds on the ground that the change of senti- 
ment which has taken place among us demands it. What 
I am anxious to see, as I intimated in the connection re- 
ferred to, is a concerted, systematic movement, by common 
consent striking out into the new style of labor that is 
called for, and distinctively committing us as a church to it. 
As a matter of personal conviction and method, what is 
recommended has, to some extent, already been done by 
not a few of us. As a denominational movement, it has yet 
to be done. Only in this latter sense do I speak of it as a 
new departure, and in this sense it clearly is so. 

Then, on the other hand, it will be said by those opposed 
to the course here recommended, that it would be no new 
departure, only a return of our Church to the old doctrine 
of ' future punishment/ and thus a going back to ground 
we have once abandoned. But any such objection is with- 
out basis in fact. I can conceive, indeed, that it might 
have in it some element of fact, and yet be no objection. 
In the violence of its reaction from existing opinions, a 
movement may for a time swing away from some truth to 
which it finds it necessary afterward to return ; and such a 
return, in its place, is a going forward as really as though 
the truth were then first announced. In this case, however, 
the objection has not even so much to make it valid. The 
theory of 'future punishment,' as it prevailed in our early 
history,* — and as it has usually prevailed, — proceeds on 
the 'orthodox' predicate that God's administration is not 
now one of just and equal moral awards ; that this earthly 
life is one of probation, not of exact retribution ; and that, 



* Murray and his followers, it should he said, disclaimed the doctrine 
of future punishment as a penal infliction, as they disclaimed all pun-, 
ishment in any penal sense. Christ, they held, has paid our debt under 
the law, and hence, in justice, there can he no more punishment for sin. 
Sufferings do, indeed, follow transgression, after death, as here; but 
these, it was alleged, are consequential, not penal. 
3 



34 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

in the case of those who die unsaved, the account is to be 
squared only as they are still further punished on the other 
side of the grave. In other words, the theory is one of 
debt and credit, affirming in effect that the sinful and unbe- 
lieving at death stand charged with so much punishment 
due, and that the books can be balanced only as this is here- 
after visited upon them. But all such theorizing is now 
happily exploded among us, as it is fast passing out of the 
thought of all well-informed and reflective minds. 

The Ballouian period, in the order of our development, 
did incalculable service, not alone to us, but to the whole 
Christian world, in this respect. Herein, doubtless, was its 
providential purpose. Up to that period, the whole interest 
of our being was focalized in the future world. Everything 
here was thought to be morally at loose ends — the wicked 
not punished ; the good not rewarded ; every man left to 
live as he might list, with occasion only to think of that ter- 
rible day of account yonder, when the books are to be 
opened, and all are to be brought to judgment. So far as 
this world is concerned, the whole current of theological 
teaching averred, there is no motive to live a godly life, the 
preponderance of motive being rather on the side of a life 
of sin, were it not for the terrible hour of recompense that 
is coming ; but then all the hardships and sacrifices of the 
good are to be paid for by the felicities of heaven, and all 
the rejoicings and prosperities of the bad are to be balanced 
by the torments of hell. Thus time was nothing. Eternity 
was everything. Hosea Ballou — speaking of him as leader 
and representative — made war against all this. lie pro- 
claimed God's instant and constant moral rule. He ap- 
pealed to the Bible, and familiarized the popular ear with 
the statements, long overlooked, that God "verily is a God 
that judgeth in the earth;" that, "though hand join in 
hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished ; " that " the way 
of transgressors is hard;" that "there is no peace, saith 
the Lord, to the wicked ; " and that, while " to be carnally- 
minded is death, to be spiritually-minded is life and peace." 
He did not fail to recognize the fact that time is often re- 
quired for certain judgments to culminate and burst upon 
evil-doers, as also for certain fruits of righteousness to 



THE NEW DEPARTURE. 35 

ripen into most conspicuous display. But, he iterated and 
reiterated, God reigns nevertheless, holding every soul to 
rigid account. He never suspends payment, or does busi- 
ness on credit ; but by inviolable laws, according to what 
one is in character, must, every moment, be his experience 
of loss and pain, or peace. And, thus preached, how this 
doctrine was ridiculed and denounced ! What weapons of 
sarcasm, and argument, and misapplied Scripture were 
launched against it ! What idiocy and ' moral insanity ' 
it was alleged to indicate ! What appeals to appearances 
and seeming facts were made, often ''with great, swelling 
words," to demonstrate how opposed it was to the lessons 
of actual daily life ! But, despite all, the testimony was 
persistently given, and, with untiring pertinacity, the Bible 
was cited, history and experience were invoked, and the 
nature of things, and the necessities of spiritual law, were 
adduced in its support and demonstration. As the result, 
no moral philosophy would now be thought sound that did 
not include this doctrine as one of its cardinal ideas ; and 
no intelligent pulpit, at all abreast of the time, fails more Or 
less positively to enforce it. Had Hosea Ballou done noth- 
ing else except so to put into the thought and consciousness 
of Christendom this vital fact concerning the instant and 
constant operation of God's moral government, he would 
deserve to be honored as one of the world's great reform- 
ers ; and while most of us now are compelled to think, and 
on occasion do not scruple to say, that in our judgment 
some of the theorizings and conclusions of the Ballouian 
period have been exceedingly mischievous as practical ele- 
ments of our denominational life, we hold it as undeniable 
that, on the whole, it has helped us and helped the world 
onward, and that these undesirable speculations, inevitably 
incident to such a drift-period of thinking, have been more 
than counterbalanced by the result thus accomplished, — a 
result, it is perhaps for us to consider, that could have been 
so widely and thoroughly reached only as attention was 
arrested, and discussion engendered, and feeling stirred by 
the extreme putting of this idea in the doctrine of 'no 
future punishment.' The evil of overstatement is not unfre- 
quently thus overruled for the permanent advance of truth. 



36 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

At all events, the Universalist church is now immovably 
fixed in this position ; and what is here urged is no going 
back to any outgrown and abandoned doctrine, but really a 
new departure, because a more logical and strenuous affir- 
mation of the principle underlying this position as always 
and everywhere true. And if, as this principle alleges, God 
does actually deal with us so rigidly according to our char- 
acter, holding us instantly and constantly to account, to 
what but the very thing here pressed are we called as the 
duty most imperatively devolving on us ? For, if God does 
so hold us to account, then, no matter where we may be, 
character becomes the one grand concern on which every- 
thing in our moral experience depends. And, this being 
so, how can we, as a Christian church, at all discharge our 
obligations, unless we hold up this fact, and summon men 
to act in view of it, as the fact of solemn and perpetual 
significance it is ? 

Contenting myself, then, with these rejoinders to the 
objections likely to be made to the purpose of these pages, 
the question returns, lias not the time fully come for the 
New Departure here sketched ? If the Gospel of Christ be 
indeed God's ministry of healing and life to a perishing 
world, — if sin really is a wrong, on account of which we 
should feel guilty, and a curse, without regard to time or 
place, from which we need escape, — if especially it be true, 
as we have come so generally to believe, that there is un- 
speakable peril in sin, that every human soul has something 
at stake on its character and choice, not simply for this 
world, but for all worlds, and that, till it heartily repents, 
and gives itself to God through Christ, it is and must be, 
according to its lack of religious quickening and purpose, 
in darkness and spiritual death, whether in this world or 
any other, — is it not alike the call of God and of needy 
souls that we give ourselves as never before to the enforce- 
ment of these truths, and thus to the endeavor to make 
them, to the widest possible extent, " the power of God 
unto salvation " in the world ? 

Let no one raise the cry that this is a proposition to dis- 
turb the existing harmony of our Church, or to set up new 



THE NEW DEPARTURE. 37 

standards of Universalist fellowship. Nothing is here said 
of any new terms of fellowship ; and it is preposterous to 
suppose that the harmony of our Church is to be disturbed 
by any honest effort to call us more perfectly to meet the 
demands of any convictions to which we have generally 
arrived. Our Church, thank God, is at length one ; and 
palsied be the hand or tongue that, except on some issue of 
overmastering principle, would divide it. Our platform is 
laid ; and as it is, so in substance it must be. We need no 
new departure in this respect. Whoever believes in the 
Bible as the record of God's successive revelations, in the 
Lord Jesus Christ as the authoritative Son of God, and in 
the final redemption of all souls through Christ, is a Uni- 
versalist, however he may interpret the Bible on incidental 
points. We have always had the largest liberty of opinion 
on this common platform. This liberty of opinion must 
continue. But it is clearly not only fit, but obligatory upon 
us, that the dominant state of opinion shall give distinctive 
tone and direction to our church-life. It would be both a 
very factious and a very unreasonable minority that should 
deny this, be the dominant opinion what it might ; and, 
while no one's freedom of opinion or of utterance is to be 
trenched upon, our general conviction as to the nature of 
salvation, and as to what is dependent on faith and prayer 
and spiritual co-operation with God, must, unless we are to 
fail of the errand appointed us, henceforth determine our 
estimate as to what we have to do, and how we shall seek 
to do it. 

This, then, is the New Departure for which it is the pur- 
pose of this book to plead. It is not, indeed, the only new 
departure to which we are called, as we go forward to make 
up the record of another century. Intellectually we need 
to make such a departure, and, not less, practically. 

The Universalist believer should be second to no other in 
the breadth and freshness of his thinking, in the largeness 
of his mental hospitality and acquirements, or in the warmth 
and comprehensiveness of his moral and philanthropic con- 
cern. And the Universalist church must be nowhere ex- 
celled in its zeal for education ; in the ripeness and fulness 



38 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

of its culture ; in its superiority to prescription and preju- 
dice ; in its readiness to welcome light, come it whence 
it may ; or in its wise and free-handed plans for the instruc- 
tion of the ignorant, and the rescue of the perishing. Our 
record in these respects is creditable, but we must be am- 
bitious for far better things. 

Sympathetically, Universalism is the synonyme of a love 
that includes all souls, and of a saving purpose which leaves 
not one out ; and it will be a shame to us if, as our numbers 
and resources increase, we do not put ourselves, in respect 
to all philanthropic and practical Christian activities, in the 
van of the church, where, as the representatives of such a 
gospel, we belong. 

And so, theoretically, Universalism is equally the syno- 
nyme of " ivhatsoever is true; 77 and, as its disciples, it is 
incumbent on us to be open, receptive, inquiring, accord- 
ingly. There are religionists who are afraid of science, and 
who, amidst the jostlings of modern discovery, are con- 
stantly putting forth their hands to steady the ark of God. 
And occasion enough they have for apprehension. But a 
true religion has nothing to fear from any true science. 
Science is the knowledge of God's doings demonstrated to 
our reason ; religion is the knowledge of the same God re- 
vealed to our faith. Let science explore -and demonstrate 
wheresoever or whatsoever it may, then, the religion that 
really has God 7 s truth in it can possibly come to no harm. 
For this reason, we have nothing to apprehend, only, in the 
way of illustration and confirmation, everything to expect. 
We should welcome discovery, therefore, and keep abreast 
of the most advanced knowledge, that we may see how all 
truth harmonizes, and be led up every shining path which it 
opens, with strengthened faith, into sweeter nearness to 
God. 

Speculations there are, indeed, calling themselves. science, 
irreverent, self-sufficient, which, skimming the surface, or 
jumping at conclusions, set themselves, "with malice pre- 
pense, 77 to undermine all religion, and relegate the world 
back to Paganism. And a habit of scientific assumption, 
too, there is, and a disposition to insist that all inquiries 
must be pushed in an exclusively scientific spirit, both of 



THE NEW DEPARTURE. 39 

which repudiate faith as a rightful element in any conclu- 
sion. AH these we must be able to estimate at their real 
worth, and to dispose of as they deserve. But true science 
we must hail as always our ally and friend, to be not simply 
accepted, but loved, served, in every legitimate way fur- 
thered and encouraged. 

And so in respect to all that is highest and broadest in 
the intellectual activities of the age, and of the coming ages. 
Not only must we have our scientists and educators. We 
must have our philosophers, our discoverers, our historians, 
our thinkers and workers in every field, kings and priests 
among the most regal and priestly leaders of the world, to 
whom none who wish to know the best things can afford to 
be indifferent. We shall have them. 

And, so led, our whole Church must be pervaded by a 
kindred spirit. We know not, indeed, to what momentous 
office, in relation to the Bible and Christianity, this Church 
of ours is, in the providence of God, yet to be called. 
With ' orthodoxy/ science and all progressive thought are 
in irrepressible conflict. All the discoveries and tendencies 
of the time are at war with its old statements and interpre- 
tations. Ere we are aware of it, therefore, the fortunes of 
Christianity as a historical religion, humanly speaking, may 
be in our keeping ; and upon us, reviled as we have been as 
the enemies and rejecters of the Bible, its final defence and 
vindication may devolve. Ours it should be to prepare for 
so grave a trust, ready and waiting to keep step with every 
new advance, that whatever results earnest thought and 
legitimate investigation may anywhere furnish, may be made 
by us to tell for the further verification of truth and the 
glory of God. 

All this, however, will come naturally in the order of 
events, if we keep ourselves in other respects a live and 
faithful people. Our deepest and most imperative need is 
spiritual awakening and impulse. This is the deepest and 
most imperative need of all Christendom. The old theolo- 
gies are dying. Souls are adrift. Minds are questioning 
and doubting. Hearts are hungering. Life is largely with- 
out centre or mastery, except from beneath. What they 



40 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

need is spiritual arrest, quickening, anchorage. Ours it is, 
if we actually have any business in the world, to answer 
these great uses. We must arrest, attract, religiously sat- 
isfy, and vitalize what will else be without any spiritual 
ministry or direction. And, to do this, we must be a peo- 
ple profoundly conscious of spiritual realities, and glowing 
with spiritual life. Our principles are final and eternal. 
Our standards of fellowship are all we require, if honestly 
interpreted and faithfully enforced. In every outward par- 
ticular we are well equipped for the work assigned us. 
Our one thing wanting is that, taking up the words of the 
apostle, we shall say with high resolve, " Whereto we have 
already attained, let us walk by the same rule ; let us mind 
the same thing." We have thus far carried the torch of 
God's universal and immutable love to dissipate the shadows 
and burn up the errors of the old interpretations, disclosing 
afar off the issue to which, under His guardianship, all 
things surely tend. We are now called to use this torch 
more clearly to disclose the conditions on which all spiritual 
results depend, and on which alone the prophesied fact of 
Christ's efficiency can become a fact accomplished in any 
soul. We are to emphasize spiritual law. We are more 
specifically to aim at definite spiritual ends. More posi- 
tively recognizing the work of saving souls as the work of 
every Christian church, we are to address ourselves as 
never before to this labor. In one word, having fought the 
battle and won the position we have, ourselves meanwhile 
growing into greater distinctness of intellectual and moral 
perception, we are to avail ourselves of the position we 
have reached to enter on our second century seeing more 
clearly precisely what, as the servants of the world's Re- 
deemer, we have to do, and using more earnestly the new 
and higher means of influence at our command. 

Why and how this is to be done, it will be the purpose 
of succeeding chapters to show. 



CHAPTER II. 

A SURVEY OE THE FIELD. 

What is the net result ? This is the question after every 
battle. It is equally the question after every straggle of 
whatever sort, and especially after every moral or religious 
•contest, or as there comes a time in its progress for a pause 
and a survey of the field. Naturally, therefore, it is the 
question that comes to us at the opening of our second 
century. 

Theologically, as we have seen in the preceding chapter, the 
result of our work is surprising. Scarcely less surprising is 
the change which, out of a handful of unlettered ministers 
and scattered believers, during a period comparatively so 
short, and against hostile influences so numerous and power- 
ful, has made us in standing and resources what, as a 
church, we to-day are. But what of moral and spiritual re- 
sults 1 What of the religious effectiveness of our methods 
and motives ? Christ came a quickening spirit, to be the 
world's Saviour ; and Christianity, as his instrument, aims 
steadily at one purpose, viz., the religious awakening and 
salvation of souls. Every church, therefore, that is really a 
Church of Christ, stands invested with this meaning ; and 
so far as it fails in this respect, whatever else it may do, it 
fails in its final design. Our net result in this respect, then, 
what is it ? 

In part, it is a result every way creditable. To multi- 
tudes, Universalism has been - a ministry of divine awaken- 
ing and power. Oppressed, many of them despairing, 
amidst the gloom and discouragements of the traditional 
creeds, or walking in the darkness of unbelief, or liv- 
ing in indifference or sin, its light has shone upon them, 
and suddenly they have found themselves in a new world. 
The thought of God has grown beautiful to them. Christ 
has become more precious. A new meaning has glorified 

41 



42 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

the cross, and sent home the pathos of its appeals to their 
hearts. Duty has become more attractive ; sin more repug- 
nant ; prayer a privilege and a strength of which they had 
never dreamed ; religion an unspeakable joy. " All their 
lifetime subject to bondage," trembling at the thought of 
death, or asking with anxious and moaning hearts, Are our 
beloved safe ? they have seen heaven opened, as it were a 
fresh revelation, disclosing its certain reunions and the 
blessedness of God's perfect service, and have been attracted 
towards God and the redeemed in a holier life. Others, 
born in the atmosphere of Universalism and nurtured in its 
spirit, have illustrated its influence as an element of Chris- 
tian culture, as they have knelt from their youth at the feet 
of the Saviour, saying, like Samuel, " Speak, Lord ; thy ser- 
vant heareth thee," and giving themselves to the work of 
the Church. A rich record Universalism has made for itself 
in these respects ; and could we but see the long procession 
of those — young, middle-aged, and old — stretching through 
the past hundred years, who have thus been reached and 
benefited by it, we should need no other evidence that God 
is in it. 

But while this is one side — and a very gratifying side — 
of the case, and while we thus have many reasons to be 
proud of Universalism and of the Universalist Church, and 
to thank God for what they have done, we cannot close our 
eyes to the fact that, religiously, the result of our first cen- 
tury's work is not all we could wish. We are improving 
in this particular, and are every year becoming a more re- 
ligious people, with more of insight and spiritual life. But 
our failure at this point is none the less the one great occa- 
sion of sorrow to many of our ministers and the more 
thoughtful of our people, as they look over the field and 
sum up the outcome of our labors ; nor is it to be concealed 
that many are anxiously asking, What is the explanation ? 
As concerns all the moralities, respectabilities, and charities 
of life, Universalists may challenge comparison anywhere. 
The benevolence of their faith broadens their sympathies, 
and — despite some mischievous speculations which will be 
duly noticed in a future chapter — its philosophy of moral 
obligation and award cultivates an ethical conscience, so 



A SURVEY OF THE FIELD. 43 

that, as a class, they are conspicuous in these regards. 
But when we look for what is deeper and more experimen- 
tal, to an extent at all corresponding, we do not find it. 

Looking outside what we have been accustomed to call 
our denomination, but what we are hereafter to designate as 
our Church, we discover that multitudes who say they be- 
lieve Universalism are identifying themselves with other 
churches, helping to support what they profess to regard as 
false ; and still worse, if possible, other like multitudes are 
content to have no religious associations, and with their 
children, are helping to swell the number of those who en- 
joy the blessings of our Christian institutions, but do noth- 
ing for their support. 

And looking within the lines of our organization, while 
we can truthfully say that no church shows a higher average 
of people upright in business, kind to the poor, every way 
reputable, it cannot be said that devout affections and a re- 
ligious conscience are by any means general among us. We 
are not a praying people — that is, in the sense in which this 
phrase is commonly employed. Praying Universalists, in 
this sense, there are, many of them ; how many there are 
who pray in the voiceless secrecy of their communion with 
God, it is for no human pen to assume to say. But the 
custom of family, social, or stated private prayer does not, 
to any considerable extent, prevail among us, because there 
is no prevailing sense of duty in these directions ; and how 
rare it is to find those in our congregations who can be 
called to lead in public prayer, we all know. We have 
opinion rather than faith ; more nominal assent than spirit- 
ual impulse or purpose. Our parishes far outnumber our 
churches ; and where churches exist, they, as the rule, are 
very small, with a male membership lamentably dispropor- 
tionate to that of the congregations. And then look abroad: 
what mean the so-called Universalist societies — alas, so 
many of them ! — dead or dormant ? What mean the Univer- 
salist meeting-houses sold, or rented, or standing unused, 
given up to decay, monuments to our dishonor ? And last, 
but not least, what mean the fields where for years Univer- 
salism — or what has borne that name — has been preached 
to no visible effect in the spiritual vitality of the people, 



44 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

and only to result in a sickly and struggling life for the 
congregations, or in final wreck and dispersion ? For two 
successive years, not long since, I spent several vacation 
Sundays with one of our oldest parishes in New England, 
trying to make the dead bones live. The community is 
a thriving one, and the Universalists, so-called, have all the 
advantage of numbers, wealth, and position. But having 
sold their house of worship, the most of them first allowed 
themselves to be bodily transferred to an attempt to build 
up a Unitarian society ; and this experiment having failed, 
they have since sunk into comparative apathy, and though 
having occasional preaching, seemed, the last I heard of 
them, to be dying of spiritual inanition. Nor, unfortunately, 
is this a solitary case — so far as the substantive facts of 
apathy and inanition are concerned. The question presses, 
then, What mean these things ? And still further, how are 
we to account for the religious deadness and the indisposition 
to do anything for the organization of parishes, or the sup- 
port of public worship, in so man} 7 sections where a nominal 
Universalism widely prevails ? There are counties in my 
native state (New Hampshire), where what is called Univer- 
salism may almost be said to be the prevalent form of re- 
ligious thought, and where there is no lack of pecuniary 
ability, which are complete wastes as regards any active 
Christian effort, save as an occasional Sunday's preaching 
may intermit the dearth. Other states show similar dis- 
tricts. 

These are some of the facts we are compelled to contem- 
plate. They must, there being so many of them, have some 
common meaning. What is it ? I hesitate to say it ; but I 
do not see how we can avoid the conclusion, that what large 
numbers of people hold as Universalism is thus practically 
proved to lack penetrative, awakening, mastering power. 
Those who profess it are in no way possessed by it. They 
are not melted or smitten, are not "pricked in heart," or 
brought to their knees by it. It is of the head, — not of 
the deepest or inmost life. It begets no intensity of con- 
viction. It fills with no sense of religious obligation. It 
prostrates with no consciousness of sin. It stirs to no pen- 
itence. It inspires no consecration. In a word, it fails to 
save soul?. 



A SURVEY OF THE FIELD. 45 

These are hard things for me to say. But, unfortunately, 
they are indisputable facts — the reverse side of the net re- 
sult of our first hundred years' labor. I shall, no doubt, be 
thought by some of my brethren injudicious, — perhaps shall 
be charged by others with overdrawing, because I state 
them so unreservedly. But we have long enough talked 
about them in private, and hinted at them in our public ut- 
terances. The time has come for them to be plainly set 
forth, and for the probe to be fearlessly applied, to reveal 
their cause or causes. I am not unaware, of course, that 
statements so free are likely to be used to our disadvantage 
•by unscrupulous sectarists, who will give no attention, for 
themselves or others, to the explanations which are to fol- 
low ; and I shall, no doubt, be represented as having said 
that Universal ism is religiously a failure, with no power to 
save souls. But whoever so represents me, directly or by 
implication, will deliberately violate the nfnth commandment, 
and allege what I neither say nor mean. As an honest 
man, I could no longer preach nor advocate Universalism, if 
I could either make or believe any such statement. While, 
however, full} 7 recognizing this liability to a misrepresen- 
tation of the statement which I really make, it has not 
seemed to me any reason why it should be withheld or 
qualified. It is a cowardly friendship for any truth that 
fears to deal honestly with its hinderances, or to point out 
the errors and mistakes of its nominal adherents, lest some 
enemy should be dishonest enough to pervert or misrepre- 
sent what may be said. The only way to treat a disease is, 
first of all, to face it at its worst, and then to look after its 
remedy. 

Some of the causes of the state of things I have glanced 
at are common to our human nature, without regard to sect 
or creed. They are such, therefore, as are afflicting all 
churches, more or less, with the evils complained of. Every 
denomination has its wayside hearers, its stony ground, 
its thorny ground, as well as its good ground. Regarding 
other churches at a distance and from the outside, every- 
thing ma} 7 appear roseate as to their earnestness and spirit- 
uality ; but going inside, we find matters quite different, 
and learn that they have their lacks and their failures as 



46 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

well as we : a statement, as I once made it in substance 
from the pulpit, emphatically indorsed by an Episcopal 
clergyman who heard it, and that was attested with equal 
emphasis, some years ago, by a New England minister who 
left the Unitarians to join the Orthodox, and more recently 
by a good, but unstable brother, now deceased, who went 
from us to the Swedenborgians, expecting to find them far 
more spiritual than we, but in a year or two returned, 
wofully disappointed. 

The whole history of religious truth abounds in just such 
two-sided results as we have to confess. It was so with 
the ministry even of the apostles. Not only were there 
those who were hearers and not doers of the word, but 
there were those who heard and believed only to misappre- 
hend, and who, failing to perceive the guiding and cleansing 
purpose of what they nominally received, were made rather 
worse than better. The Epistles abound with references 
and exhortations which show that there were such in all the 
early churches : those to whom their new Christian freedom 
meant only license, and who, released from their old motives, 
and failing to be reached by the new, were morally lawless, 
with no positive sense of obligation anywhere. As the result, 
in part, what now are the very fields in which Christianity 
was first preached? Moral wastes, giving no sign in the 
life of the people of the divine ministry of Christ, or of the 
heroic labors of apostles, by which the ground has since 
been hallowed to every Christian heart. Does it, therefore, 
follow that Christianity is not of God ? And following it 
down, has Christianity even yet altogether ceased to be 
misapprehended, or to be held in unrighteousness ? Or, would 
it be too much to say of forms of Christianity which the most 
' evangelical ' will admit come within that definition, that 
what large numbers thus hold to be Christianity is practically 
proved unequal to the work of saving souls ? The Reforma- 
tion furnished evidence to the same effect. Numerous ex- 
travagances of doctrine and action followed the emancipation 
of religious thought from its long thraldom. Luther himself 
seems not always to have discriminated very closely between 
non-allegiance to the authority of the Church, and non-alle- 
giance to the authority of God's Word ; and as he contem- 



A SURVEY OF THE FIELD. 47 

plated the crudities and fanaticisms of opinion, and the moral 
looseness and lawlessness growing out of the causes which 
he had been the means of setting in operation, he is said to 
have wrung his hands at times in his distress and mortifica- 
tion, almost repenting what he had done. The early annals 
of Methodism give similar witness. Charles Wesley con- 
fesses himself ''much discouraged by the disorderly walk- 
ing of some who have given the adversary occasion to blas- 
pheme," and records that many insisted " that a part of 
their Christian calling is a liberty from obeying, not liberty 
to obey;' 7 and John Wesley had much trouble with "dis- 
orderly walkers," of some of whom he said that "the spirit 
of Ham, if not of Korah, fully possessed them ; " while of 
others, his biographer records that they "fell into extrava- 
gant notions, and ways of expression, more proper to be 
heard in Bedlam than in a religious society." * 

These are but examples of a general rule. Every move- 
ment towards a fresh statement of truth, while attracting 
some who will catch its spirit and be helped by it to a 
better life, is sure to attract others who will do neither. 
Some, more or less correctly perceiving it intellectually, will 
hold it only as a lifeless theory, a lump of so much lead in the 
brain, and still others, totally misapprehending it, will accept 
it only as an occasion of license, or of indifference and 
neglect. Nor is any doctrine, claiming to be truth, responsi- 
ble for such consequences, except as they are the clear and 
legitimate fruit of some principle essential in it. Paul 
thanked God for the success of his labors, though what he 
preached was to some " a savor of death unto death." 
Preaching what he believed to be the truth, he felt that he 
and his labors were approved of God, though some did hear 
only to disbelieve, or to believe in a misunderstanding of 
the new faith, and thus to be injured rather than benefited. 
And this is the law always. " What though some were 
faithless to their trust? " asked Paul, concerning the Jews. 
" Shall their faithlessness destroy the faithfulness of God ? " 
(Rom. iii. 3, Conybeare & Howson's Version.) All truth is 
liable to perversion, misconstruction, abuse. But the truth 

* Whitehead's Life of Wesley, pp. 128, 135, 436, 453. 



48 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

is none the less the truth on account of either of these 
things, and is to be preached, notwithstanding — because it 
is the truth, and because it is sure, in time, to purge itself of 
all such concomitants. 

There are, moreover, some special considerations to be 
taken into account in our case, aside from the point of chief 
interest in it. 

In the first place, it must not be forgotten how much this 
Universalist movement involves. It is commonly thought 
of as a mere change of opinion concerning a single doctrine. 
But it is far more than this. It is a breaking up of "all the 
established habits of religious thinking. Still holding on to 
God and Christ and the Bible, it is a new theory of them 
all ; a reconstruction of the whole system of Christian 
theology, substituting new principles of action, appealing to 
a new set of motives, making life, as to its foundation and 
spirit, a totally different thing. And this being so, consider 
how much ground is thus covered, and how many are the 
conditions, alike as to what must be done and what must be 
undone, which have to be fulfilled before Universalism can 
become thoroughly appreciated, and so be fairly put into 
life. No ship, leaving its anchorage, at once gets the wind 
and goes straight on its course. It always drifts more or 
less before the canvas sets, and the rudder makes itself felt. 
So, by similar necessities, in every moral and intellectual 
movement. It takes time for new principles fully to assert 
themselves ; for loosened minds to get wonted to freer and 
broader channels ; for heart and conscience to feel the 
pressure of higher appeals, and thus for the new motives 
to obtain mastery. 

Then, too, it must be borne in mind how, from the first 
up to a very recent period, we have been arguing and fight- 
ing, — important employments, without which we could not 
have leavened and modified religious opinion as we have, 
but not emploj^ments favorable to spiritual culture, or to a 
high order of religious life. For a long time, on this account, 
what passed under the name of Universalism, — what many 
preachers exclusively preached, and what solely filled far 
too many pews, was simply anti-orthodoxy. It had little 
or no sympathy with any affirmative faith, and as little 



A SURVEY OF THE FIELD. 49 

interest in any positive practical Christian aims. It cared 
only to deny and argue and pull down, and began to lose 
whatever life or zeal it had, as soon as labor was turned 
towards personal spiritual experience, or definite religious 
ends. It and its dying out among us furnish the sufficient 
explanation for many of the so-called Universalist meeting- 
houses transferred, or surrendered to decay, and for many 
of the nominal Universalist societies dead or dormant. 

Another thing in this same direction : Because of this 
antagonistic and controversial attitude to which we were for 
years in part compelled, and which, unfortunately for us, 
this anti-orthodoxy still further ■ intensified, it is to be con- 
sidered what kind of material, for a time, with much that 
was better, drifted into formal connection with us — some 
of it coarse, some of it corrupt, all of it eager only for a 
game of fisticuffs with ' our opposers/ without religious 
sensibility or purpose, and, wherever it touched, poisonous 
and destructive to every best interest of our cause. It is 
the penalty of all new movements to take along more or less 
such material, — as every freshet gathers into its current all 
kinds of lumber and rubbish as it sweeps along. But the 
rubbish is not the stream. As little does this sort of material 
make part really of any worthy movement which may, for a 
season, be cursed with it. But it is a curse, none the 
less ; and this curse, we, like others, have not failed to 
experience. 

Nor is this all. It must be remembered how widely 
Universalism has been compelled to do its work, hindered 
and neutralized by the influence and false education of 
1 orthodoxy.' " I know," said a little four-years-old son of 
one of our ministers, as his Sunday school teacher was talk- 
ing with his class about bad boys, " I know what becomes 
of bad boys. They go to hell, and are burned up forever. " 
And this talk from a child of one of our ministers — and a 
minister most watchful over his children and their associa- 
tions, well illustrates how the whole atmosphere of society 
has been pervaded by the doctrines and spirit of the tradi- 
tional creeds. Universalism has not been permitted to as- 
sert itself as an element of Christian nurture uncontaminated 
by these creeds, even in our own homes. What has been 
4 



50 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

the consequence ? With numerous other mischievous im- 
pressions, the public mind has been saturated with the idea 
that were it not for hell, and our exposure to endless woe, 
there would be no good reason why we should be religious, 
or at all concerned in religious work. Of course, the fear 
of hell being removed, people so trained have had little or 
no conception of any other motive sufficient to control 
them. What wonder, then, that Universalism has not been 
so successful as, under other circumstances, it might have 
been in lifting the popular mind up to the level of its ap- 
peals, and so in putting its own spirit and motives into 
those theoretically converted to its doctrines ? And what 
have we, really, in much of the neglect and irreligion or- 
dinarily charged to the account of Universalism, but the 
direct harvest of ' orthodox ' training, or of the principles 
which it has sown and tilled ? Nor is it a fact to pass 
without mention here, that the Universalism of large num- 
bers who have dishonored our name has been wholly learned 
from the slanders of ' evangelical ? pulpits. Such pulpits, 
falsely representing the teachings of Universalism to be what 
they never were, have sent away the profane and the vicious 
with the impression that Universalism is favorable to their 
low and vicious life, and they have said, If this is Univer- 
salism, then we are Universalists ; and we have had to 
bear the odium of their professed friendship, though they 
knew no more of Universalism than Simon the sorcerer 
knew of the Gospel, and were without even so much of 
right to bear its name as he had to call himself a Christain. 
Still further : Until within a few years, comparatively, 
we have been without any system of religious culture and 
work. In the reaction of our denominational fathers from 
the doctrines they renounced, there was, naturally, — almost 
unavoidably, — a quite general reaction from all existing re- 
ligious methods. Prayer-meetings, the church, the Sunday 
school, tracts, missionary societies, family prayer, a formal 
profession of religion, everything but the simple service 
of preaching, was, to a wide extent, opposed, or, if not op- 
posed, ridiculed or neglected, as savoring of cant, fanati- 
cism, or priestcraft. The pendulum had begun to return from 
this mischievous reaction just before I entered the ministry ; 



A SURVEY OF THE FIELD. 51 

but its consequences long continued, and even now have not 
wholly ceased. If there are to be religious results, there 
must necessarily be some system of means to secure them. 
So long lacking any such system, then, and not simply lack- 
ing, but to a large extent deriding and fighting against it, 
how could it be but that the consequences should be re- 
ligiously disastrous to us ? 

Particularly must it be taken into account, in this connec- 
tion, to how small an extent we have had any thorough and 
systematic training of our children, even in the doctrines of 
the Bible as we understand them, — much less with refer- 
ence to religious obligation and experience, and a distinctively 
religious life. Some of them, from their very infancy, have 
been carefully and prayerfully educated in Universalism, 
not only theoretically, but as a religious power : and how 
many such have anywhere failed to be devout, earnest, con- 
secrated men and women ? But as the rule, has it not 
been thought sufficient that children growing up in our 
homes should be trained in a general way to respect God 
and the Bible and the Sabbath, and to be kind, honest, truth- 
ful, morally upright, and when this has been done, have 
they not been left to themselves as to anything else ? And 
though we have had Sabbath schools, and have come of late 
years, almost universally, to institute them, as a matter of 
course, wherever we have had established congregations, has 
it not been equally the rule, up to a very recent period, 
even if it is not the fact quite so widely now, that they 
have taught Jewish history, Scripture biography and ge- 
ography, with some occasional smattering of doctrine, 
and some talk about being good, leaving the more vital and 
spiritual applications of our truth to the conscience and the 
heart with comparatively little attention ? Is it, then, very 
strange that such sowing has not resulted in the best re- 
ligious harvests ? 

All these things have unquestionably had their impor- 
tance in our case, and they severally serve to explain, in 
part, the failure in purely religious results which we are now 
noting. But the consideration which, as I believe, alone 
goes to the root of the matter, and explains, as none of these 
does, what is saddest and most perplexing in this state of 



52 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

things, is yet to be mentioned. It is, that there has been 
among us a wide-spread lack of sufficiently serious views 
of irreligion and sin as related to God and the inmost life of 
souls — of which a chapter further on will duly treat. As 
the consequence, all the effects of sin have, to a similar ex- 
tent, been supposed to end with the body, and Universalism 
has thus been apprehended as simply a proclamation that all 
souls, at death, however they may have lived, pass at once to 
certain felicity, without regard to any conditions of faith, char- 
acter, or effort here. 

Under any circumstances, it was inevitable, as was just 
now intimated, considering in what ideas the people had so 
long been educated, that the announcement that there is no 
endless hell should seem to some minds to remove all imper- 
ative reason for religious living, however conditioned or 
qualified salvation might have been. In a sense, motives 
are the nerves of life ; and it is obvious that, under no cir- 
cumstances, could it be a light thing, or a task wholly unat- 
tended with danger, to take out from our physical frames 
one set of nerves and substitute another. A child brutal- 
ized under a regime of kicks and blows does not at once and 
readily appreciate the force of purely moral influence. At 
the best, therefore, it was inevitable that large numbers, be- 
cause of their false and pernicious ' orthodox ' education, on 
becoming convinced by Universalist argument to the nega- 
tive extent of believing that there is no endless woe to be 
afraid of, should feel that the strain of religious motive was 
loosened, and that they were somewhat more at liberty, if 
they so pleased, to take things easily, and to give only so 
much attention to religion as they might find convenient, or 
as might seem to them needful to be respectable. There 
could not be such a transition without something of immedi- 
ate moral harm. But when it came to be so almost univer- 
sally understood that Universalism means not simply that 
there is no endless punishment, but that there is absolutely 
nothing for even the most sinful to be anxious about on the 
other side of death, — that live as negligently, or as 
wickedly, as one may here, it makes no difference as to his 
immediate felicity when he dies, it is not surprising — at 
least, to me — that the effect should be, religiously, very 



A SURVEY OF THE FIELD. 53 

unfavorable, and that we should see what we have seen, 
and still do see, of listlessness and unconcern. 

Those there have been, indeed, holding this doctrine, who 
have been among the saintliest and most consecrated souls 
that ever blessed the world with their presence — just as 
there have been such among the believers of the terrible 
doctrines of ' orthodoxy/ But these last are no examples 
of what such doctrines are fitted to make their believers, — 
only examples of what those believing these doctrines, but 
feeding upon the truth associated with them, may become 
in spite of them — as even in the most poisonous flower the 
bee finds that which it transmutes into honey. And for 
much the same reason, never thinking of reward or punish- 
ment, — only living in habitual communion with the best 
and sweetest things in the Gospel, these saintly and conse- 
crated souls among the disciples of this theory which 
confines all the peril of sin to this world, and which puts 
even the most profane and unbelieving directly into heaven 
at the moment of death, in no way illustrate the natural 
tendency of such a belief, — only illustrate what power there 
is in strong religious instincts, and a positive sympathy 
with God and the Saviour, to neutralize even very mischiev- 
ous error, and to come to beautiful spiritual flower and fruit 
in spite of it. 

If we are to test the real influence practically of such a 
theory, we must look to those on quite another moral level. 
And taking the world as it is, we cannot convince men that 
there is actually no peril in sin beyond this life, and that 
there are no conditions of salvation there to be here 
fulfilled, — that no matter how badly they live, or what 
they neglect, they will certainly slough off all unpleasant 
consequences of their misconduct with the body the instant 
they die, and go straight to glory, faring just as well as though 
they had lived the most self-denying and Christian life, with- 
out paralyzing their spiritual concern, and leaving them to 
be swayed as appetite, or the supposed interests or pleas- 
ures of this world, may suggest. Even those who think 
somewhat of their highest obligations are prone to put off 
any decided step religiously till circumstances shall be 
somehow more favorable, or till sometime when, as they 



54 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

think, it will be easier for them to make the effort or the 
sacrifices required. Satisfy even them, therefore, that they 
have only to wait till they die, to find themselves ' all 
right ' without any effort on their part, and, in many cases 
of every hundred, they will say, Why trouble ourselves 
about what is then so certainly to take care of itself ? And, 
if even such will be so affected, how much more those who 
seldom give a moment's thought to their religious duties, 
save as they occasionally think what they are hereafter 
likely to suffer on account of their neglect ! 

It is true that every day is a day of reckoning, under the 
moral government of God, and that whoever chooses a life 
of worldliness or sin is making a great mistake, every day 
attested in his or her experience as a soul. It is no less 
true that every day of a saintly life is its own sufficient 
compensation, and that one who has attained the elevation 
of such a life never stops to think what he or she is to get 
for it hereafter. ''The backslider in heart shall be filled 
with his own ways ; and a good man shall be satisfied from 
himself. " And, these things being so, it is very easy to 
say what should be, and how people ought to live with no 
thought of consequences after death, certain that every 
day's Jiving pays for itself. But, as the fact, people do not 
so live without regard to consequences. As the fact, the 
less one has of spiritual impulse and culture, the more he 
depends upon consequences to determine his choice towards 
good. As the fact, if men are to be up and doing, they 
must feel that they have something at stake. So it ever 
has been, as all experience testifies ; and so, by every law 
or theory of motive upon which men are most accustomed 
to act, it ever must be. Even with reference to this world, 
as people average, they will not work unless some necessity 
is laid upon them ; and, however superior to such stimulus 
some of rare constitution, or of a high order of spiritual 
development, may be, the mass of mankind, tempted and 
dragged down as they are by the immediate solicitations of 
material and sensual appeals, will not, in affairs of the soul, 
rise so far above the ordinary plane of motive as to deny 
themselves, and renounce their easy indulgence or uncon- 
cern, and put themselves to struggle and effort towards a 



A SURVEY OF THE FIELD. 55 

better life, except as the spur of consequences presses into 
them, and they are compelled to feel that, hereafter and 
always, as here, what they shall be must depend, under 
God, wholly upon themselves, and depend there, for a 
period no one can say how long, upon what they are and 
do here. 

Had there been any room for doubt on this point before, 
the result of our experience would render any further doubt 
impossible. The several considerations recited by way of 
explaining the absence of the religious results we fain would 
see, but do not, at the close of our first hundred years, are, 
as has been said, important in their place ; and each of them 
does something — some of them do a great deal — to solve 
the problem presented us. But when we have made the 
most possible out of the explanations thus furnished, there 
still remains much in our condition that is not touched ; and 
this, as a large majority of our most thoughtful ministers and 
people have unquestionably come to believe, is to be directly 
charged to the account of the idea of certain immediate 
salvation at death without regard to conduct or character. 
Not that it is meant to say that the absence of any such 
idea would have saved us from all which we now have to 
deprecate. Not by any means that it is designed even to 
intimate that the idea of the continuity of character, and 
of responsibility for it, beyond death, necessarily insures re- 
ligious life. We have all known persons and congregations 
theoretically committed to this doctrine, who were very far 
from oeing patterns of religious devotion, or even of moral 
uprightness. As no opinion, however false, will make all 
who avow it bad, so neither will any opinion, however true, 
spiritually vitalize all who hold it. The question in respect 
to all moral or religious ideas is, first, as to their truth, and 
then as to their general tendency, their natural and legiti- 
mate results. And what it is intended here to say is only 
this — that the natural tendency of the idea referred to has 
been to spiritual lethargy and unconcern, and that, had 
more philosophical and scriptural convictions concerning 
sin and its consequences prevailed instead of it, results more 
favorable would doubtless now be seen. This idea, it is 
meant to say, has taken away the stimulus of necessity as a 



56 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

motive to religious interest or effort. It has fostered the 
impression that such interest or effort is entirely a matter at 
our private option, since it has taught those accepting it 
that, if they preferred to serve the world, or sin, willing to 
take the consequences here, they would be just as well off 
at death. It has thus begotten a false sense of security. 
It has been an opiate, lulling to slumber a religious con- 
science. It has enervated religious force; weakened the 
sense of religious responsibility ; relaxed the strenuousness 
of religious inducement ; undermined religious life ; and — 
mourning, as we have such occasion to mourn, over IMiver- 
salist societies once thriving (as it was thought), now 
apathetic or dead, — over Universalist meeting-houses sold, 
rented, or going to decay, — over nominal Universalist be- 
lievers, religiously sluggish and unconcerned, — over all that 
tells religiously to the dishonor of our Church, and seems 
to attest the failure of Universalism itself as a religious 
power, — we are unmistakably pointed to this idea as the 
most fatal and effective among the causes which have 
wrought to produce this state of things. All our waste and 
desolate fields, so far as I know, are fields where this idea has 
reigned. In a word, the doctrine of a fixed and uncondi- 
tional salvation, certain for all at death, has had a fair trial 
in our history, and the verdict is, Tekel. It has been 
weighed in the balances, and found wanting. 

I hold in high respect — some of them, in warm and af- 
fectionate regard — the brethren who are still supposed to 
entertain this doctrine. In speaking of it, I wouM not 
even in seeming violate any demand of love or courtesy 
towards them. But I have no words to express my profound 
and growing conviction as to what this theory has been as 
a mischievous element in the life of our Church. Nor can I 
sufficiently put into language the intensity of my conviction 
that, while the largest liberty of thought and speech is to 
be maintained, we owe it to ourselves, and all that is at 
stake in the salvation of souls, to have it henceforth every- 
where understood that Universalism means, and that the Uni- 
versalist Church stands for, no such thing. 

Nor am I alone in this conviction. With different degrees 
of intensity, it has come to be the prevailing conviction 



;a survey of the field. 57 

among us. Should it be so much as a question, then, 
what we will do ? Surveying the field, and summing up 
the net result religiously of our first century, are we not 
imperatively called to a new departure, as we are entering 
upon another stage in our history ? — a departure that will 
duly emphasize our now general conviction that salvation is 
offered, not secured, except as each soul complies with the 
conditions on which God has planned it for His children, and 
thus a departure that will henceforth make Universalism a 
call to activity, under the lead of Christ, in co-operation with 
God, and not a proclamation of results to be somehow 
wrought out by Christ, because unconditionally decreed by 
God, with which we have nothing to do. 

I am sure I cannot err in saying that there is no thought- 
ful Universalist who would not be unspeakably saddened if, 
forecasting the horoscope of the next hundred years, he 
should see only a similar net result as we now have to con- 
template. Thank God, he would exclaim, for any good our 
Church may have done, but, alas ! we do not touch the 
vital spot ; the great work to which every church of Christ 
is appointed in his behalf is left undone. Shall we hesitate, 
then, to change the administration of the truth given us, so 
as to touch this vital spot, and do Christ's great work ? Our 
truth remains unchallenged. Everything proclaims it true ; 
and there is no occasion to doubt or to distrust it. We 
have only erred in administering it. The sublime anthem 
of a complete salvation, written of God, is still to be chanted 
amidst the discords of sin and sorrow in our world, and we 
are to lead the chorus.- It is only required that we pitch it 
to another key-note. Never before, though our net result 
is not all we ought to witness, have we had so much reason 
as now to thank God and take courage. All thought, all 
philosophy, all theology, all the best life of the time, is tend- 
ing in our direction. Considering ourselves, moreover, not 
only are we greatly increased in numbers : we are more 
compact, better organized, more definite in aim, better 
equipped in means, wiser and more resolute in methods 
than ever before ; and, better than all the rest, we are 
ripening morally, and deepening and becoming more alive 
spiritually. It is only needed that, committing ourselves 



58 OUK NEW DEPARTURE. 

to this New Departure, we go forward, mighty in the power 
of our great truth as thus better administered, and working 
so as to secure God's blessing, in order that we may effec- 
tually retrieve any mistakes or omissions of the past, and be 
the conquering and redeeming Church God is inviting us to 
become. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 

The first condition of a religious life is a right sense of 
God, and an awakening of the heart towards Him ; and in 
its very essence, Universalism presents God in such aspects 
and relations as cannot fail to touch any heart, if fittingly 
enforced and duly reflected upon. In respect to God, there- 
fore, we need to take no new departure except — 1. Per- 
haps, to make our exposition of Him less exclusively intel- 
lectual, for purposes of mere argument, and more directly 
and personally an appeal to conscience and the affections, 
as a means of spiritual influence ; and, especially, 2. To dis- 
criminate more closely in our ideas of His goodness, so as 
more distinctly to include the fact of His severity as well as 
His kindness. What is implied in the first of these specifi- 
cations is being so anticipated in the current drift of our 
church-life, and will, besides, in so many ways run through 
these pages, that it is not necessary here to dwell upon it ; 
but the second is on every account so important as to be en- 
titled to a prominent place in this general discussion. 

Heading the report of a lecture on Abyssinia,* some time 
ago, I was much struck with the following sentences, and 
particularly with the statements here italicized : " The Abys- 
sinians, though zealous observers of fast-days, which make 
up nearly one third of the year, are nevertheless a very in- 
temperate people, and many diseases are to be attributed 
solely to their excesses. The practical doctrines which they 
derive from Christianity seem to be that there is no limit to the 
mercy of the Almighty, and that, as life is short and pleasure 
fleeting, it is desirable to seize every opportunity for enjoyment. 
Acting on this plausible theory, they eat more raw meat, drink 
more mead, . or small beer, commit more breaches of the moral 

* By E. Hepple Hall, before the Traveller's Club, New York City. 

59 



60 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

law, and particularly of the seventh commandment, than any 
other Christians, in Christendom or out of it." The lecturer 
was represented to be an Abyssinian traveller ; and assum- 
ing that the statements are reliable, they signally illustrate 
how the doctrine of God's illimitable mercy may be so 
unqualifiedly, and therefore falsely, held as to become an oc- 
casion of license rather than a motive to holiness. Our 
great doctrine of God's goodness has probably never been 
subject to any such extreme perversion ; but is it too much 
to say that there have been approaches to some such misap- 
prehension of it ? 

One of the seed-errors of ' orthodoxy ' is, that it so tears 
the justice of God from its relations, and so exaggerates its 
proportions and demands, as to make it an infinite malignity ; 
and in the earnestness of our protest against this, we have 
almost unconsciously been carried towards the other ex- 
treme. As the result, we have, — not exaggerated God's 
love, for infinite Love cannot be exaggerated, but have, 
to some extent, failed to keep duly in mind its qualifying 
attributes and the various methods it employs. A some- 
what too rose-colored and sentimental view of God's char- 
acter has been the consequence — as if His goodness were 
only an easy and infinite good-nature, a boundless and all- 
approving complacency, overlooking all distinctions of char- 
acter, — an invincible and invariable indulgence, too tender 
to be rigorous, too loving to be stern and terrible. To this, 
rather than to any mere emphasis we have given to God's 
love, is due, it is believed, the wide-spread impressions — 
1. That, as distinguished authority has recently expressed 
it, Universalism is simply " an outgrowth of the diseased 
sentimentalism of the period," — ''the exaggeration, or, 
perhaps, the perversion of philanthropy," sure, "if severely 
left alone," to " run to seed after a little," as this " diseased 
sentimentalism " shall be cured by the access of a little 
more common sense ; and 2. That Universalism is of course 
impeached, and Universalists necessarily unhorsed, if God's 
punitive justice is proved, or if anything but this easy and 
infinite good-nature is attributed to Him. 

All such impressions, whether existing as one-sided con- 
ceptions of the truth, among ourselves, or as grounds of ob- 



THE GOODNESS OF GOD, 61 

jection against us, among others, we must, if we are to 
administer the Gospel more effectively for religious ends, 
studiously correct, careful in the mean time to give no fur- 
ther justification for them. Dr. Ballou, of blessed memory, 
left a brief paper on this topic, not very familiar, I imagine, 
even to Universalist readers, but one of the best products of 
his wise and thoughtful mind. Let me invoke the authority 
of his name, and the vigor and discrimination of his pen, 
to set forth, so much better than I can, the view of the sub- 
ject which should hereafter give character to our thinking 
and labor. He first deals briefly with the philosophy of 
criminal reform ; and though it does not directly treat of the 
love of God, what he thus writes serves so important a pur- 
pose as an introduction to what follows, that it should not 
be omitted. He says, — 

" It appears to us that any general system of measures for the re- 
form of the vicious, or for the correction of the criminal, must prove 
futile in the end, unless it provide for the use of sharp, and sometimes 
terrible, severity. If we attempt to get wholly rid of this unwelcome 
agent in the work of human discipline, and rely exclusively on forbear- 
ance, inoffensive gentleness, and the attraction of sympathy, to effect 
the purpose, we shall find that they soon lose their power ; when taken 
thus alone, they will at length exert even an injurious, because enerva- 
ting, influence on the public. Human nature is such that, in order to 
acquire consistency and strength, it needs a great amount of hardship 
mingled in with its more pleasant experiences; just as we need the 
immense pressure of the atmosphere to stimulate the functions of 
animal life, or as the universal order of physical nature depends on 
the nice adjustment of repulsion and attraction. How would it do to 
dispense with either of these ? In the existing state of human society, 
together with the arrangements of Divine Providence, there are indeed 
many instances of a wonderful reform of individuals effected by the 
exhibition of gentle persuasion alone ; but, even in these instances, it 
is because there is already furnished a dark background of suffering, 
or of conscious danger, to contribute its part towards the result, and to 
give the gentler element a chance to penetrate the heart. Shut up 
the criminal in a gloomy prison, under the ban of the world, or let him 
anxiously fear this doom ; let the general order of things be such that 
the vicious man shall feel that he is under the stern censure of the com- 
munity in which he lives, that he has by his own fault lost the respect 
and fellowship for which his social nature yearns, that he has wickedly 
ruined his health or his business ; or let him be harassed by apprehen- 
sions of these results ; let the sinner be oppressed with guilt and with 
the consciousness of self-desolation ; and then the voice of individual 
sympathy and encouragement may indeed come home to him with a di- 



62 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

vine power, because his previous discipline, together with his present 
environment, has driven him to appreciate it. But how, if he had 
never been subjected to such unwelcome discipline ? Suppose that a 
mistaken philanthrophy were to bring about such a state of things, that 
criminality should at once secure to the offender, not the ban of the 
world, nor the repelling censure of society, but universal sympathy, 
a tender, patronizing assiduity, and that all sin were to be treated simply 
as a misfortune, till the very sense of guilt should thus be allayed as 
far as possible in the sinner's own petted conscience ; suppose that the 
element of stern penal justice should be exorcised from society, and the 
work of human discipline be carried on, from first to last, by soothing 
processes only ; it is easy to see that, in this case, the gentleness would 
lose all its efficacy. There would need a background of severity as 
its complement. 

" It may be well to consider the relations of the subject to the doc- 
trine, that the spirit, in which God made and governs the world, is in- 
finite goodness, and that the manifestation of this goodness is the 
means recognized by the Gospel for reconciling mankind to their Maker. 
Should it be asked, whether the principles we have illustrated be not 
inconsistent with this doctrine, we should answer, Yes, if the goodness 
of God were simply complacency, or were it never exhibited under any 
other form than that of tenderness. Here is a point on which, we 
think, there is want of discrimination, with many, in assuming their 
premises. They seem to forget the other forms in which this divine 
perfection is manifested. Now, we have only to look out into Nature, 
or into the actual course of Providence, to see the different aspects in 
which it appears. God created the world in infinite goodness ; He al- 
ways deals with us in infinite goodness ; and if we but observe how He 
has constructed His creation, and how He administers His govern- 
ment, we shall see how, as matter of fact, His goodness operates. 

" How, then, does it appear in Nature ? Not exclusively in the form 
of gentleness. There is the terrible earthquake that strikes all hearts 
with mortal fear, and that sinks whole cities into a yawning gulf, crush- 
ing thousands under falling ruins and in the opening jaws of the earth. 
There is the raging hurricane that sweeps its path of desolation ; the 
howling storm that buries the trembling, praying, and exhausted sea- 
men in the bosom of the deep ; there is the thunderbolt that smites 
down the unwarned victim. The solid globe itself is made of million 
tons of impracticable granite and rock to one of fertile soil; and it is 
the law proclaimed by Nature, as well as by Revelation, that man shall 
toil and suffer till he returns to the dust. God brings sickness upon 
us, and we linger through months and years of excruciating pain. He 
sends disappointment into our long-cherished schemes, and a blight 
into our fondest affections. Though we pray Him to avert the blow, 
and struggle in desperation to turn aside His descending rod, it is 
often in vain ; He strikes home into our little circle of joys, and leaves 
us heartbroken. If we sin, He follows us with the punishment as 
stanch as death ; if we involve ourselves in ruin, He lets us take the 
consequences of our folly or wickedness, without sparing. Now, all 



THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 63 

this is but the manifestation of His goodness, for He always acts from 
the same unchanged principle, how different soever the outward dispen- 
sations. ' God is love ; ' but to us His love is as awful, in some of 
its workings, as it is pleasant in others. These, let it be remarked, 
are known facts, which it will not do to ignore. 

" We must add that the Scriptures also represent His goodness in 
the same two-fold light. We sometimes hear language which seems 
to imply that the thought of God ought not to be associated with any- 
thing like severity or terrible infliction ; that nothing, indeed, but ideas 
of the most fond and tender nature ought to enter into our conceptions 
of Him. This, however, is not the teaching of facts, as has been seen ; 
and certainly it is not the presentation which we find in the Bible. 
According to the writers of the New Testament, God, who ' is love,' 
is at the same time, 'a consuming fire,' and ' it is a fearful thing to 
fall into His hands,' that is, for punishment. While they * beseech us 
by the mercies of God,' they also admonish us in language intended 
to alarm-, like the following : ' Despiseth thou the riches of His good- 
ness, and forbearance, and long-suffering ; not knowing that the good- 
ness of God leadeth thee to repentance ; but, after thy hardness and 
impenitent heart, treasurest up to thyself wrath against the day of 
wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God ? ' Goodness, 
manifesting itself in the most fearful judgments, as well as in gentle 
aspects, — this is the view which the writers of the New Testament, 
when read continuously, present us of the subject ; and we cannot but 
see that, in this, they perfectly agree with the facts of Nature and Provi- 
dence. It is unquestionably the right view. 

" There is a fanciful assumption that has been sometimes taken, with 
respect to the Bible, and dilated in various forms, namely, that the 
Old Testament speaks only in tones of sternness and dread, and de- 
scribes God only as an object of terror, implacable, taking vengeance 
on His foes ; while, on the other hand, the New Testament discards 
everything of the kind, and is all gentleness, seeking only to win. 
We suppose that this account of the matter can have been intended 
only for a fancy sketch ; though it is questionable whether good taste 
will allow, even in a fancy sketch, so obvious a departure from the 
known facts in the case. Notwithstanding that the Gospel gives the 
fuller revelation of the character and purposes of God, yet the same 
principles are recognized by both parts of the Bible, we mean so far 
as they go. The New Testament abounds in ideas as terrible as any 
that we meet with in the Old, though the greater refinement of the later 
age may have softened, in some degree, the dress in which they are 
clothed. And, on the other hand, the Old Testament often speaks the 
language of that noted text in the Psalms, ' The Lord is good unto 
all, and His tender mercies are over all His works.' What can be more 
dreadful than those words of our Saviour, referring to the destruction 
of the Jewish nation, ' Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting 
fire, prepared for the devil and his angels ' ? or that passage of St. 
Paul, with respect to the same event, ' The Lord Jesus shall be re- 
vealed from heaven, with his mighty angels, taking vengeance on them 



64 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus 
Christ ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the 
presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power ' ? What can 
be more tender and encouraging than the words of the prophet, ' Can 
a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion 
on the son of her womb ? Yea, they may forget, yet will not I forget 
thee ! ' Either Testament would be altogether one-sided, and there- 
fore practically false, did it aim only to soothe and console, or only to 
terrify and repress. 

" Perhaps it will now be said, according, then, to these views, God is 
good but in part, and He is, in part, otherwise. No ; this is not the 
proper conclusion, nor is it the doctrine of the Scriptures. ' God is 
love ; ' He is wholly good in every act and in every purpose. But the 
important truth on which we would fix attention, and which embraces 
all we have said on the subject, is this : that His goodness works by se- 
verity as well as by indulgence. All true goodness operates in this 
way. It is not goodness, it is a mischievous dotage, which is so weakly 
tender that it cannot employ harsh and even terrible methods when 
occasion demands. In such cases, it always does harm whether it at- 
tempt to govern on the broad theatre of a nation, or in the narrower 
circle of a community, school, family, or individual, — in civil, or in 
moral and religious affairs. Wherever human nature is to be dealt 
with, in the present existence, we can see that the removal of all 
grounds of fear, or of painful necessity, would at length prove an evil 
incomparably greater than any which we now encounter ; it would be 
like dissolving the spheres by abrogating the law of repulsion as the 
complement to that of attraction." * 

These are weighty and momentous words. As thus ex- 
pounded, Universalism will hardly be thought by anybody 
to give signs of ' diseased sentimentalism/ or of being ' the 
exaggeration or perversion of philanthropy ; J and upon the 
basis of these facts and principles, it can alone be made 
most potent for the work of human redemption. It is un- 
deniable that so the Bible holds and sets forth the goodness 
of God. Can we improve upon its method ? 

There is another view of the subject, too, which must not 
be overlooked — a view very clearly involved, indeed, as 
Dr. Ballou puts the case, but that has not hitherto received 
the recognition to which its importance entitles it. The 
goodness of God, in its very nature, is unappeasable, unre- 
lenting, in its demands. A love less determined and endur- 
ing would tire in the work of human recovery, abandoning 
the obdurate and impenitent to themselves. But His love 
is inexorable, unconquerable. It never will let go, steadily 

* Universalist Quarterly, vol. vii. pp. 286-290. 



THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 65 

pursuing its purpose to bring all souls into harmony with 
itself, however benumbed or obstinate any may be, through 
whatever terrible furnaces of penalty and pain it may be- 
come necessary to lead them, 

Better than any dogmatic statement or argumentation, on 
this point, are the words of George McDonald, in Robert 
Falconer's talk with his poor, weak, lost father,* — words 
that none of us would accept as to precise form, perhaps, 
but that in spirit are not only richly suggestive concerning 
this persistent, consuming love of God, but also as to the 
moral inertness which is one of the chief hinderances in the 
way of the confirmed sinner's return : — 

" ' Father,' repeated Robert, ' you've got to repent, and God won't 
let you off, and you needn't think it. You'll have to repent some 
day.' 

" ' In hell, Robert,' said Andrew. . . . 

" ' Yes, either on earth or in hell. Would it not be better on earth ? ' 

" ' But it will be no use in hell,' he murmured. 

"In those few words lacy the germ of the preference for hell of 
poor souls, enfeebled by wickedness. They will not have to do any- 
thing there — only to moan and cry, and suffer forever — they think. 
It is effort, the outgoing of the living will, that they dread. The 
sorrow, the remorse of repentance, they do not so much regard. It is 
the action it involves ; it is the having to turn, be different, and do dif- 
ferently, that they shrink from ; and they have been taught to believe 
that this will not be required of them there, in that awful refuge of the 
will-less. I do not say they think thus ; I only say their dim, vague, 
feeble feelings are such as, if they grew into thought, would take this 
form. But tell them that the fire of God without and within them will 
compel them to bethink themselves ; that the vision of an open door 
beyond the smoke and the flames will ever urge them to call up the 
ice-bound will, that it may obey ; that the torturing spirit of God in 
them will keep their consciences awake, — not to remind them of what 
they ought to have done, but to tell them what they must do now, — 
and hell will no longer fascinate them. Tell them that there is no 
refuge from the compelling love of God, save that love itself, — that. He 
is in hell, too, and that, if they make their bed in hell, they shall not 
escape Him, and then, perhaps, they will have some true presentiment 
of ' the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched.' 

" ' Father, it will be of use in hell,' said Robert ; ' God will give you no 
rest even there.' " f 

* Pp. 493, 494. 

f As these pages are about leaving my hands for the printer's, our 
papers give us the admirable sermon of Rev. J. M. Pullman, before the 
Convention at Washington, in which, with others, both these points 
5 



66 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

There is much in the spirit of all this, as I said, for us to 
think of. The love of God is, beyond all controversy, the 
central and most precious truth of the Gospel. No jot must 
we lessen the stress and prominence we have given it. The 
most influential ' evangelical ? pulpits in the land to-day, 
those that are most mightily touching the keys of the popu- 
lar heart, are made what they are by the preaching of this 
truth. We must not surrender a whit of its power to them. 
There would be no Gospel without it. But the Abyssinians 
— to say nothing of others nearer home — demonstrate how 

made by McDonald are strongly presented. " Love," says Mr. Pull- 
man, " is changeless ; it is inexorable. Forever and ever, in any world, 
under any and every circumstance, it must pursue its objects till its 
continual desire respecting them is accomplished. . . . God has pun- 
ished you. While He has seemed in so doing to be devoid of pity, . . . 
there has always been the alternative of repentance and reconciliation. 
. . . The possibility of reunion has never been closed." He well says, 
too, that this doctrine of God's pursuing and inexorable love furnishes 
" the true terror " for the sinful. " To the awakened mind, God's prom- 
ise that it shall be restored to virtue comes to bless ; but to the unawak- 
ened heart that promise comes as a threat, and there can be no terror 
in all the world so awful as that which comes when one is made to feel 
that his darling sin ... is to be withdrawn. . . . Let the dungeons of 
the prison and the lunatic asylum, let the walls that have echoed with 
horrible shrieks, let the ears that have become hardened with such cries, 
tell us what they know of the terrors of restoration. Then shall we 
understand that it is no holiday matter, that it is nothing for us to 
throw ourselves laughingly upon, that God has issued His decree that 
He will at last have all souls redeemed, and brought back pure into His 
kingdom." And, commenting upon this sermon, the Christian Leader 
well says : " We get down to the core of our theology when we recog- 
nize that the love of God is inexorable. As the preacher pertinently 
put it, the Divine Xove is a consuming fire. . . . The statement that 
God will by no means clear the guilty is only half understood until it is 
construed to mean that He will by no means permit him to remain in 
his guilt. The most momentous truth of revelation is that no soul can 
escape the decree which has ordained that it shall be holy, harmless, 
undefiled. And what an irresistible power is in this searching truth ! 
Once get it fairly before the minds of men that there is absolutely no 
escape from the decree that they shall be good, and how mightily will 
your appeal for purity, honor and righteousness move them ! It is the 
delusion that there is some way out of this inflexible grasp of Immortal 
Love that permits the vain artifices to which men so generally resort. 
Universalism teaches that there is no escape from the purpose of God 
to have all men saved and come unto the knowledge of the truth. It 
thus teaches what the saintly Henry Scougal felt when he exclaimed, 
' To go anywhere wrong is to run against the love of God, which every 
Way circumvents us and drives us back.' " 
So the New Departure has, in this respect, begun. 



THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 67 

it may be held only for evil. Universalisru, we must cause 
it to be everywhere understood, is no ministry of this truth 
in any such direction. It is a gospel of love, we must 
insist, but of no mere good-nature, of no sentimental laxity, 
that simply pities wrong-doing, and talks only in gentle and 
persuasive tones, and sprinkles its delicate perfumes, and 
dilutes God's administration into a reign of mere sympa- 
thetic indulgence, as if there were no such thing as sin to 
be punished, and no such severe and terrific facts as make 
up one side of God's appointments. His government has 
many sides and many instruments, we are to remember. 
The Bible talks of His wrath as well as of His love, because, 
in a mere natural view, His retributions seem to indicate 
displeasure. But though His love tempers and explains the 
expression as symbolic, it does not wholly explain away its 
significance as a symbol. There is always grave and some- 
times fearful meaning in it ; and any theory of God or His 
government which fails to recognize this meaning, and to 
give it due place, is so far one-sided, and to this extent false. 
This, then, is the New Departure whereunto we are called 
in this particular. God's words to us include ' Woe ! ' as 
well as ' Blessed ! ' We are summoned henceforth more 
discriminatingly to enforce both, availing ourselves, as some 
have always done, of all the grounds of appeal thus fur- 
nished ; only bearing constantly in mind, and never failing 
duly to emphasize, the fact that, however God may deal 
with us, He is our Father, perpetually true to a Father's 
name and obligations, and, even amidst His severest inflic- 
tions, however relentlessly, still always beneficently seeking 
our welfare. In a word, the Goodness of God must so take 
form in our thought, and so be presented to others, as to 
lead alike us and them up to His throne, to adore that mar- 
vellous Love, and that infinite, unwearied, inflexible Patience, 
which, numbering the very hairs of our heads, clings to us, 
watches over us, pleads with us, punishes us as we deserve, 
disciplines us as we need, and, through whatever terrible 
paths of sorrow or of suffering He may lead us, never lets 
us go, and never will let us go, till, availing ourselves of 
His helps, and responding to His appeals, we all come home, 
to fulfil His purpose, and find our peace in harmony with 
Him forever. 



CHAPTER IV. 

♦•BOUGHT WITH A FKICE." 

There is no saving power in Christianity, except as there 
is first a personal interest in. Christ ; and such an interest 
is possible only as there is to inspire it some fitting sense 
of what Christ has done for us, and of the reality and 
magnitude of the obligations under which he has placed us. 

If, then, Universalism is to be made more religiously ef- 
fective, this is one of the points to which increased atten- 
tion must systematically be given. We have always made 
Christ prominent. But, as the rule, have we not made 
him prominent chiefly in his general relations — as the 
means of God's appointment, destined certainly to re- 
deem our race ? Have we equally pressed his personal 
relations and claims, and our personal obligations ? These 
questions found their answer in our first chapter. 

How shall we, to best purpose, press these personal 
relations and claims, and our consequent obligations ? 
is, therefore, I believe, just now, one of the inquiries of 
most urgent interest to our future usefulness. And, as I 
state the inquiry, Paul's words to the Corinthians, " Ye 
are not your own, for ye are bought with a yrice" seem 
to me to suggest the best answer. Ingratitude is univer- 
sally held in odium. So far as any moral sentiment asserts 
itself, mankind are always touched by undeserved sacrifices 
in their behalf. To the same extent, then, that we can 
penetrate men with the feeling that they belong to Christ 
by virtue of what it has cost him to serve them, we shall 
awaken them to a sense of these personal relations and 
obligations to him. Herein is the explanation of the efficacy 
of what is called evangelical preaching, so far as it has 
ever moved and won hearts. It assigns to Christ a specific 
work for our sake, and so compels the feeling of obli- 
gation to him. Much of its apparent success, it is true, 
is due to fright, and nervous excitement, and mercenary 

68 



BOUGHT WITH A PRICE. 69 

and terrific appeals, quite out of place in any Christian 
pulpit, producing results only seemingly religious, and not 
seldom working injury alike to the convert and the church. 
But that it has been instrumental in the real conversion of 
many souls, inducing their genuine consecration to God, is 
equally undeniable. Proceeding on a false theory of our 
exposure, such conversions have nevertheless been wrought 
by a true sense of Christ's self-sacrifice. The exposure 
has been assumed to be, our liability to endless perdition, 
under God's wrath and curse ; but as the cross has been 
pictured, and the pitying Saviour has been portrayed 
hanging upon it, forgetful of himself in his love for us, 
willing to die that we might live, and the appeal has been 
urged, Can you be indifferent to such an interest in your 
welfare ? the loving spirit of Christ has shone through all 
encompassing errors, and the effect has invariably been to 
awaken to penitence and attract to a religious life, in pro- 
portion as attention has been secured, and the reality 
of the sacrifice has come home to thought and con- 
science. Much as we may abhor its theory of redemption, 
justice compels the confession that, as so administered, 
' orthodoxy ; has proved itself widely — and despite its 
terrible misconceptions, beneficently — potent for religious 
ends ; and a host of devoted and saintly souls, won many 
of them from open and flagrant courses of sin, have, 
through the centuries, been wedded to Christ by it in a 
sense of obligation which has mastered every faculty, and 
made their whole subsequent lives one continued and 
chivalric purpose to love and serve a Saviour who has 
done so much for them. It is for us, on the basis of our 
better interpretation, if we wish to have our labors ac- 
companied with similar signs following, to be equally spe- 
cific in setting forth what Christ has done for us, and 
in urging home its appeal. Generalities move nobody. 
Talk to a man in a vague, miscellaneous way about favors 
conferred upon him, and, ordinarily, little or no impression 
is made ; but let some one leap into the water to save his 
life, or lose a limb, or shed so much as a drop of blood 
for him, and the probability is, that he will ever after 
feel himself in debt to his benefactor. With a like direct- 



TO OUR NEW DEPASTURE. 

ness of appeal, we must seek to impress people with as 
vivid and realistic a sense of what Christ has done to be- 
friend and save them. For all religious purposes, we might 
as well cease to be, if we do not. 

Hence the importance of this fact that we are " bought 
with a price. " It is the central fact in Christ's relations to 
us. The entire plan of redemption, so far as he is a party 
in it, grows out of this — that he loved us and gave him- 
self for us, "a ransom for all, to be testified in due time." 
There was, indeed, as we believe, no bargain in the case. 
The ' evangelical ' theory has always assumed that there 
must have been ; that a price could really be paid only in 
some such commercial sense. On this account, as the 
Bible speaks of our bondage to Satan, it was at one time 
supposed that the ransom was paid to him. Then, as the 
absurdity of this became apparent, the theory now current 
obtained — the theory, scarcely less absurd and even more 
barbarous, that Christ had to buy off God from His re- 
lentless purpose of vengeance, by suffering in our stead 
an equivalent for our endless woe. We hold no such theories. 
We pronounce them as derogatory to God as they are de- 
grading to the conception of our salvation. But the price 
at which we have been bought, we insist, is none the less 
real. There was no wrath or curse of God, no impending 
sword, no endless woe, from which it was needful for 
Christ to purchase our escape. But there was sin ; 
there was ignorance ; there was selfishness with its canker 
and its curse ; there was pain for which there was no 
healing, and sorrow that had no consolation ; there was 
spiritual darkness, destitution, death. These were more 
than any material hell could be. From these we needed 
deliverance, and because of these the world needed the 
infusion of some fresh moral force, an element of Divine 
life, for its regeneration. Therefore Christ came — to 
teach us ; to awaken and inspire us ; to make us con- 
scious of God and spiritually self-conscious ; and thus 
to save us by putting us into electric contact with im- 
perishable realities, by making sin abhorrent to us, and 
by so shedding something of his own vitality into us 
" that we might have life, and have it more abundantly." 



BOUGHT WITH A PRICE. 71 

But all this could be done only at the cost of loneliness and 
pain, of obloquy and toil, of the ignominy and anguish 
of the cross. And this was the price at which he bought 
u§ — this giving of himself, a willing sacrifice, to suffer and 
to die for our salvation ; — a price paid to no being or 
law, as a consideration for our release, but paid as mothers 
pay weary days and sleepless nights in the sick rooms 
of their children, for their recovery ; paid as the patriots 
of our revolution paid their hardships and blood to ran- 
som us from British oppression, and as later soldiers and 
patriots paid their valor and their lives to maintain the 
institutions thus founded ; paid as sacrifice has ever 
been the price of privilege, and as hazard and suffer- 
ing are the usual cost at which great blessings are bought. 

Christ is an idea and a principle. But he is more. He 
is a pervading fact. Asking as to the origin of the world 
and the wonderful phenomena of which it is so full, every- 
thing points to God. God is written in an alphabet of 
light and beauty on the heavens, and in hieroglyphics 
of verdure, grandeur and use on all the face of the earth. 
God is whispered by the breeze ; is sung by the birds 
and the waving corn ; is preached by the rolling thunder 
and by the everlasting throbbing of the ocean. And 
so, if we ask as to the origin of the ideas, institutions 
and influences by which we are most enriched and bene- 
fited, we are just as certainly pointed to Christ. Ef- 
forts have been made to eliminate him as a factor in 
modern progress ; to explain it on various grounds of 
climate, geographical position, intellectual conditions, and 
other hypotheses. But he is not to be eliminated. What- 
ever simulation of facts may be contrived, whatever spe- 
cious web of appearances may be woven, to get rid of him, 
he meets us everywhere ; and every stream of good by 
which our lives are watered and fertilized, if followed up 
to its source, leads us back to the tomb in Joseph's 
garden, — to the cross on Calvary, — to the sea-shore 
where Christ taught, or to the mountain where he prayed, 
— and finally to the manger in Bethlehem where he was 
born. All modern history is full of him. As a distin- 
guished historian has said, his life " is the greatest event 



72 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

in the annals of time. The former ages had been a prep- 
aration for it ; the latter unroll from it." Whatever we 
may know, believe, or have, worth the having or keeping, no 
man can say that it would have been ours without Christ. 
He has quickened thought ; animated investigation ; ed- 
ucated taste ; created a new conscience ; refined and 
ameliorated law ; sanctified home ; suggested and in- 
spired every moral and social reform. He has shed 
abroad a new class of convictions, hopes and expecta- 
tions ; has furnished a new ideal of character, and the 
materials and incentives for attaining it ; has lifted life into 
grander relations, filled it with more exalted aspirations, 
clothed it with loftier meanings. Like the sunlight and 
the rain, his religion sheds its blessings for the benefit 
of all ; and no neglect is gross enough, no unbelief per- 
verse enough to hinder it from shedding something of 
its benediction upon us, or to enable any one to say, It 
does nothing for me. As a spiritual essence pervades 
all material forms, as the air we breathe surrounds the 
globe, vitalizing, beautifying all, so Christ pervades every- 
thing about us, encompassing us with his benign ministries, 
bathing our lives with refreshment, and filling them with 
whatever makes them most a joy. 

And whatever thus points us back to Christ is somehow 
a reminder of the price at which we have been bought. 
Not one of these gifts or blessings in which, directly or 
indirectly, we so share, could have been ours if Christ had 
not purchased it by the life of weariness and deprivation, 
of contempt and sacrifice which he lived for us, and by the 
death of shame and agony, and yet of sublime endurance 
and forgiving love, which he died for us. All that is meant 
by our Christian knowledge, and every privilege peculiar to 
our Christian birth, — our faith in G-od, our familiarity with 
the terms of Divine pardon and acceptance, our assurance 
of immortality, — all our means of Christian culture, and 
all that renders our Christian civilization so superior to every 
other, and so affluent in the elements of personal and social 
welfare, — in one word, all that is included in our redemp- 
tion, here or hereafter, bears the impress of the cross, and 
comes to us at Christ's cost — as the fruit of some pang 



BOUGHT WITH A PRICE. 73 

by which he was tortured, of some drop of the blood that 
trickled from his brow or side, of some sorrow that he 
bore, or of some self-denial that he accepted for our sake : 
and could we but for once distinctly gather up in our 
thought all that this price involved — the wrestle and the 
travail, — the homelessness and the weariness, — the isola- 
tion from all human sympathy, because his best friends even 
could so little understand him, — the haunting sense of 
being constantly dogged, hunted, hated, without cause, — 
the garden agony, — the betrayal and the desertion, — the 
stripes and mockery and buffetings, — the walk to Calvary, 
fainting beneath the cross, and the excruciating anguish of 
slowly dying upon it, and then feel, each one of us, All this 
was for me, we should never again be indifferent, or fail to 
feel, or to make others feel, what such a price demands. 

To make real to ourselves and others, then, this price at 
which we have been bought, is the one thing we have to do, 
if we would have our Church mighty in winning souls to 
Christ, feeling that they belong to him. " Christ and him 
crucified ,? was the burden of Apostolic faith and labor. It 
must be no less the burden of ours ; and if God is speaking 
any word to us as a Church, this clearly is part of it, " By 
this conquer." The cross is the symbol of Christ's power: 
and always, we shall, personally, have the richest Christian 
experience in proportion as we cling to it, appreciating its 
meaning ; and as a Church, we shall attract and help to save 
souls on the same condition. Nor must the cross lose a 
whit of its New Testament significance, or glory, at our 
hands. Our failure is certain so far as it does. Mothers, 
watching in the sick rooms of their children, and patriots, 
periling life for their country, were just now referred to as 
exemplifying how Christ has bought us. But all such ex- 
amples fall far short of paralleling his whole work in our 
salvation. They indicate only the general nature of the 
price he paid. They do not at all illustrate its exact rela- 
tions and spiritual efficacy. Christ suffered and died as a 
martyr, but not simply as a martyr, nationalize upon the 
subject as we may, we still have to say with Paley, "that 
the death of Jesus Christ is spoken of in reference to human 
salvation in terms and in a manner in which the death of no 



74 OUE NEW DEPARTURE. 

person whatever is spoken of besides. Others have died 
martyrs as well as our Lord. Others have suffered in a 
righteous cause as well as he. But that is said of his death 
and sufferings which is not said of any one else. An 
efficacy and a concern are ascribed to them in the business 
of human salvation which are not ascribed to any other. " * 
It is a part of the honorable record of the Universalist Church, 
that to this view of the subject it has been, theoretically, 
steadfastly committed. Our call is, if we are more effect- 
ually to do the work of a Church, that not only shall we 
continue thus theoretically committed to this view, but that 
we give it increased stress and prominence, and therefore 
increased power. 

Increased power, I say : for let it not be forgotten that 
the crucified Christ is the final power by which the world is 
to be saved. " And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will 
draw all men unto me/ 5 said our Lord (John xii. 32). 
Only in the cross did his ability to save souls, and therefore 
the means for the world's redemption, become complete. 
And why ? For many reasons — chief among which was 
the fact that only thus could a superior ownership in us be 
best asserted, and we be brought to surrender ourselves to 
its will. " We are not our own: " this is the grand lesson 
of the cross. The general assumption is, first, that we are 
our own, and second, that we have a right, therefore, to be, 
or to do, what we please. Hence the unbridled self-asser- 
tion which is the one root of all wrong and sin. Of course, 
there is a sense in which both these assumptions are true. 
But in the highest sense neither is true. Even in our mere 
human relations, considering the vast net-work in which we 
are woven, we are not our own. We belong to the Past, 
as the heirs of its blessings ; to the Present, as the stewards 
of its responsibilities ; to the Future, as the guardians of 
its welfare. We belong to our parents ; to our brothers and 
sisters, if we have them ; to our families and homes ; to our 
associates and friends ; to every human being who has done 
us a kindness, or who needs our aid ; to our country ; to our 
race. How much more, then, to Christ and to God ! We 
have not a faculty — of body or of mind, we have not a gift 

* Sermon on " The Efficacy of the Death of Christ," Part I. 



BOUGHT WITH A PEICE. 75 

— of money, position, or privilege, which we are at liberty 
to use with sole reference to our own wills, without regard 
even to these human relations, — much less as if we did not 
belong to God, and to the Saviour who has so purchased us. 
This is the central fact of which God, through Christianity, 
is seeking to make us aware. This is the meaning of His 
Fatherhood. It is equally the meaning of our Brotherhood. 
The cross is the consummate proclamation of this fact, in 
concrete. It is God's sense of ownership and His great 
consequent interest in us, — it is Christ's marvellous love, 
willing at any price to gain possession of us, put into sensible 
form ; and in whomsoever its power is at all felt, self-asser- 
tion is so far vanquished, and the will of God, as expressed 
in Christ, becomes supreme. 

Here, then, summarily, in this particular, is our new work 

— to so hold and preach the crucified Christ as to fill souls 
with the consciousness that they are not their own, because 
bought with a price, and thus to inspire them with the 
purpose in all things to make God's will in Christ supreme. 
Theoretically, there is little occasion for labor on these 
points. Theoretically, whoever believes in God and Christ, 
more or less accepts the lessons of the cross as to their 
ownership in us ; and Universalists especially, however 
nominal, are fond of appealing to these ties which link us 
to God and the Saviour as, in their nature, indissoluble, and 
thus to demonstrate that no soul can be finally lost. And 
in our distress and sorrow, when disappointment comes and 
our earthly props fail us, who does not find it pleasant to 
think of what Christ has done to comfort and save us, and 
to fall back on God, assured that through whatever gloom 
we may be led, or however we may seem to be forsaken, 
He reckons us as His own, and will never leave nor forget 
us ? What we want is a practical faith in what is now, to 
a great extent, only theory. What we want is a new 
unction and emphasis in urging these conceded truths as 
elements of a sanctifying experience — so that theory, argu- 
ment, and comfortable assurance shall be translated into 
reverent and holy living, and become the intellectual basis 
upon which our Church shall make itself widely felt in 
Christ's behalf for the salvation of souls. 



CHAPTER V. 

CHEIST ESSENTIAL. 

The fact that Christ has bought us at so great a price, 
establishes his claim on our grateful service ; and the nature 
of his appointment and the purpose of his relations to us be- 
ing what they are, he is, clearly, if we owe him any such ser- 
vice, entitled to be enthroned as paramount in the mastery of 
our lives. But is he, in any sense, essential to us ? Do we, 
for any reason, owe it to ourselves as well as to him to 
become his disciples, and thus to make him the life of our 
being ? It is one of the gravest of the many allegations to 
be made against the sacrificial theology, that it has poisoned 
the popular mind with the idea that he is not essential — ex- 
cept as an insurance against fire, or as the shelter of an 
overcoat or an umbrella amidst a storm, or as any expedient 
to save us from outward exposure or harm, is essential. 
One of the ever-recurring questions by way of objection to 
Universalism, as is well known, long has been, What is 
the use of Christ, or of faith in him, or of worship, or of any- 
thing we call religion, if there be no wrath of God, and no 
everlasting perdition, from which we need to be rescued ? 
Only because we are under the condemnation of the Divine 
law, and Christ is an " expedient by which God can consist- 
ently and honorably forgive " us, the prevalent teaching has 
been, have we any occasion for him ; and thousands of pro- 
fessed Christians — many of them far better people than 
such language would indicate — have habitually said, and 
thousands are still saying, Convince us that Christ has no 
such use to answer in our behalf, and we will give him no 
further thought or service ; we will henceforth defy God, 
and revel in sin. In other words, as -a contrivance enabling 
us to ' make our peace with God/ and evade the demands 
of justice, as a rescue from the fires of an endless hell, Christ 
is a convenience, — in a sense, a necessity ; but in no other 
sense is he essential, or at all important to us. 

76 



CHRIST ESSENTIAL. 77 

Happily, in the growing Christianization of opinion, this 
idea is giving place to a clearer insight into his relations to- 
our interior spiritual life ; but this is still, in substance, the 
doctrine of the creeds, as it is the wide-spread and mischiev- 
ous popular impression. 

Against all such teaching we have vigorously battled. 
Christ, we have affirmed, is God's provision for intrinsic 
human needs. This is our providential message, amidst the 
misleading theories of the Church — put upon our lips by 
every page of the Bible which explains man's condition or 
Christ's work. He is, we exist on purpose to proclaim, 
the bread of life ; the light of the world ; the water of which 
if any drink they shall thirst no more ; the rest and peace 
of souls. And charged with this message, our business is 
to arouse men, as nothing else can, to understand that in no 
sense is he an expedient, or a convenience ; that the need 
for him is vital, imperative, universal ; that by no possi- 
bility can anything be successfully substituted in his stead ; 
that to possess and appropriate him is to fulfil every condi- 
tion of highest life and sweetest joy ; and that not to have 
him, whoever one may be, or whatever else one may have 
or know, is inevitably to lack that which can alone give 
the ripest character, the most blessed experience, the com- 
pletest manhood or womanhood to any soul ; and the New 
Departure to which we are called in this regard is, a new 
and more determined effort so to give emphasis to these 
things, that, wherever our influence goes, it shall, to the 
same extent, be understood and felt, as never before, that 
Christ is thus, intrinsically and indispensably, a necessity to 
every soul. 

That Christ is such a necessity is proved, look for the 
facts of human experience where we will. Let it suffice 
here to ask, in what state he found the world when he came 
into it ? On many accounts, the period was a splendid one — 
the culmination of the finest possibilities, alike Jewish and 
heathen, in the way of human culture and civilization ; rich 
in artistic taste, in external refinements, in purely intellectual 
ability and attainments. Bat spiritually the world was 
empty and decaying. A frequent New Testament term to 
represent its condition is 'perish' ; and the word has a 



78 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

depth of meaning, as thus applied, which has been but feebly 
apprehended. Even the Jews, privileged as they had been, 
were sunk into an inane formalism, out of which all soul of 
genuine emotion or service had departed. Those whose 
only sustenance was in the mythologies or philosophies of 
the time were in a still worse case. " The world by wis- 
dom knew not God." Human reason and conscience had 
demonstrated their insufficiency, unaided, for the highest 
purposes of morals and religion. The moral vigor of the 
race was exhausted. Its manhood was dying out. It had 
no principle or power competent to quicken it into ' new- 
ness of life.' Its recuperative energies, its ability for self- 
recovery, its spiritual stamina were, gone ; and but for God's 
succor, infusing some new life-blood, some saving force into 
it, the world would have rotted and collapsed in its utter 
degeneracy and corruption. 

That this is the state of things everywhere indicated in 
the New Testament, is known to all who read it. The 
Apostle puts the sum of it all into few words when he says, 
"When we were without strength," — i. e., morally impo- 
tent, unable to help ourselves, — "in due time, Christ died 
for the ungodly." And history outside the New Testament 
only too sadly confirms its representations. Alas ! we have 
but to turn over the pages which - tell of the inner life of 
Greece or Rome, — have but to go abroad among the 
nations, and study the spectacle, morally and religiously, 
everywhere presented, not merely to find wickedness, for 
much of that exists now even in our most Christian commu- 
nities, and always will exist until the world's regeneration 
is accomplished, but to be shocked at the coarseness of the 
debauchery and debasement which characterized even the 
best life of the most advanced peoples, or to be somehow 
furnished with impressive evidence of the world's need of a 
Quickener and Redeemer. Paul's epitome (Rom. i. 21-32 ; 
ii. 1, 17—24) does but graphically present the undeniable 
facts. 

Christ came as the succor thus required : God's remedy 
for the decaying energies as well as for the sin of the world ; 
the fresh life-blood, to quicken ; " the power of God and the 
wisdom of God," to vitalize and redeem. Our fourth chap- 



CHRIST ESSENTIAL. 79 

ter briefly glanced at what he was as an answer to then ex- 
isting- needs, and at what he has since been in the world. 
We cannot rationally explain the facts of history, either in 
their personal or their social, in their moral or their political 
aspects and significance, except as we confess his presence 
and power. And what has been will be. The decadence 
into which the world had spiritually fallen before Christ 
came does but show in what state it would now, or at any 
time, be, were he and what he has done withdrawn. Now, 
or in the future, as in the past, there is help or hope for 
souls only in Christ and the life that is in him ; only in 
Christianity and God's redeeming energy in it. 

There are those, indeed, who tell us that the world has 
outgrown Christianity. As well might they allege that the 
earth has outgrown the sun, or that human nature has 
outgrown itself. Stages and processes in the progress of 
our education may be outgrown ; but do we, therefore, out- 
grow either the capacity to know, or the need of instruction, 
that we may know ? In like manner, the world may out- 
grow certain forms of thought about God, and duty, and im- 
mortality ; but it does not, therefore, outgrow them, nor the 
necessity of being- informed concerning them. No doubt 
some interpretations of Christianity, and some accompany- 
ing theories of miracle and inspiration as connected with it, 
have been outgrown. But to outgrow these, is one thing ; 
to outgrow Christianity, is quite another. Christianity is 
founded in our very nature, and miracle and inspiration 
were necessities, if Divine instruction was to be specially 
communicated, or we were to have any assurance of its 
genuineness and truth. To outgrow these, or our need of 
them, is, therefore, as impossible as it is that our finite 
nature shall outgrow its finite limitations ; as impossible 
as it is that the human understanding shall outgrow its 
need of a superior illumination, if it is to have any clear or 
satisfactory knowledge of spiritual things ; or that sorrow 
shall outgrow its need of consolation ; or that tempted and 
sinful souls shall outgrow the need of some help to arouse 
and strengthen, to vitalize and save them. 

Science may enlarge the horizon of its discoveries, more 
and more ■ reading God's thoughts after Him/ and those 



80 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

there may be who will imagine that Christ is to be thus 
supplanted, — some of them, possibly, that God is to be 
shown as having no longer a place in the universe. Others 
may talk vauntingly of reason and philosophy, of the intui- 
tions of conscience and the soul, of human progress and 
development, insisting that these will fulfil every use which 
it has been thought Christianity is requisite to serve. All 
this has been, and is likely to be again. But so long 
as the human soul remains what it is, and the conditions of 
human quickening and regeneration abide what they are, 
Christianity is the one thing which cannot be outgrown. 
The world will outgrow theories in science, and systems of 
philosophy, and forms of speculative thought, and inductions 
from reason and conscience — for all these it has, many 
times, successively outgrown and cast aside ; but Christ, 
or Christianity, never. Just as soon may the worlds out- 
grow space. Suppose them possessed with the idea that they 
want more room ; where will they find it ? With equal 
pertinence, we may ask, what field is there for growth out- 
side the infinite scope of Christ's spirit, or the comprehen- 
siveness of his plans ? What is there beyond the universal 
Fatherhood and the universal Brotherhood, which are the 
sum of his teachings ? What better than the golden rule 
which he lays down, — or than the love which he en- 
joins, — or than the regard for man which he enforces as 
the condition of acceptance with God ? What purer, more 
unselfish, more magnanimous than the character on which 
he insists ? What tenderer or more inclusive than his sym- 
pathy ? What more ample than his consolations ? What 
simpler than the way to God which he opens ? What more 
certain or more inspiring than his disclosures of the life 
immortal ? What grander or more encouraging than the 
spiritual enfranchisement and redemption of our race of which 
he assures us ? 

Those who talk so much about outgrowing Christ should 
answer these questions, and tell us how we are to outgrow 
what is so illimitable and universal, — tell us into what, hav- 
ing outgrown him, as they allege, they have advanced, or into 
what, outgrowing him, we are to go. Let the man who com- 
bines most of intellect and heart unfold into his loftiest possi- 



CHRIST ESSENTIAL. 81 

bilities, and still, alike in thought and affection, he will find 
Christ immeasurably above him, saying 1 , Come up higher. 
Or, let any man — the wisest, the most ' advanced/ the most 
accustomed to boast himself of what he imagines is to sup- 
plant Christ, and thus to think himself superior to any need 
of him, be stricken into helplessness, or be humbled or 
prostrated by pain, or sickness, or some great sorrow pier- 
cing into the quick of his being, — by the agony of bereave- 
ment, — by the awakening of conscience and a disturbing 
sense of sin, — by no matter what, so that the shell of learned 
or materialistic assumption in which he is encased be broken, 
and the bubble of his conceit be made to collapse, and he be 
brought to some genuine consciousness of what he is and 
of his real needs ; and amidst all that he has been accus- 
tomed to think sufficient — -lacking only the Christ he has 
flattered himself he has outgrown — he will find himself, 
spiritually, in the condition of the traveller, who, famishing 
in the desert, pushed from him the bag which he had hoped 
contained water or food, exclaiming, " Ah me ! it is only 
pearls ! " Retort and crucible, telescope and microscope, 
philanthrophy, and philosophy, reason and nature and 
schemes for human improvement are severally important in 
their places and for their legitimate uses ; but when grief 
is to be assuaged, when starving hearts are to be fed and 
soothed, when a pitying God is to be found, and pardon is 
to be assured, or when even the least of the spiritual crav- 
ings which Christ fully satisfies is to be ministered to, these 
things are to the soul only as so many stones to one who is 
dying for bread. In these straits, whatever else one may 
have outgrown, his experience will demonstrate that he has 
not outgrown a need for Christ ; and give but him to this 
humbled, awakened man, brought down from his inflated 
self-sufficiency, so that he shall clasp his hand and feel the 
inflowing of his presence, and he will have, in him, a sense 
of God's nearness and pity, an assurance of God's helpful 
grace and pardon, an experience of God's peace, and a 
power lifting him above all his vanity and broken-hearted- 
ness and sin, that, while enabling him to see a new meaning 
in every revelation of science and every suggestion of phi- 
losophy, in every delight of human knowledge and every 
6 



82 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

indication of human progress, will put him into spiritual 
heights and satisfactions of which he had never dreamed 
before. 

" Lord, to whom shall we go? " once said Peter to Christ; 
" thou hast the words of eternal life." And this but puts 
into speech the universal outcry of our spiritual conscious- 
ness, however or in whomsoever awakened. The same ne- 
cessities of human nature continually assert themselves ; 
and, whatever changes or modifications may occur in opin- 
ions about him, or in the interpretation of his words, Christ, 
"the same yesterday, to-day and forever," will be the one 
sole sufficient answer to these necessities, so long as men 
have need of God and the assurance of His fatherly love, 
and the conscience has need of guidance, and the heart has 
need of peace, and the erring have need of forgiveness, and 
the dying have need of " the power of an endless life." 

It is this fact that we are called to emphasize and enforce, 
summoning men to that practical appropriation of Christ 
which is essential to their best life. Ignorant, tempted, 
weak, suffering, sinful, they are to be made to feel it is in 
vain that we turn to reason or philosophy, to science or our 
own intuitions ; in vain that we invoke any power of prog- 
ress or f development ' in ourselves. ' None but Christ, 
none but Christ, 7 reiterated the brave old martyr, amidst the 
tortures of the stake ; and so, attempt what substitutes we 
may, that which is deepest in us will compel every one of 
us, like him, at some time to say. Christ is the quickening 
spirit, and only he. He is "the way, the truth and the 
life ; n " the light which lighteth every man ; " " the foun- 
tain of living water ; " " the bread of life ; " " wisdom, and 
righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." In our 
weakness there is no hand like his to make us strong. On 
the bed of pain, his ministries alone can soothe us to rest. 
When our hopes are shattered, no voice like his can com- 
pose our disappointment, or inspire us with resignation and 
trust. When our hearts are wounded, there is no balm like 
his to heal. Standing above our dead, only he transfigures 
death, and shows us the path of our departed illumined in 
the radiance of an immortal life. *And in our moral impo- 
tence and disease, in the waywardness of our wills, in our 



CHRIST ESSENTIAL. 83 

conflicts with temptation, in our bondage to sin and our in- 
subordination to God, our only sufficient help, no less surely, 
must come from him. Only at the foot of his cross can 
we have that loathing of sin, or be melted into that condi- 
tion of penitence and consecration, essential to newness of 
life ; and only in contact with him, as the medium of God's 
regenerative grace, can we effectively learn the lesson of 
duty, or be invigorated, vitalized, saved. None like him, 
none but he, cau fill us with the idea of excellence, or give 
us ' power to become the sons of God/ 

And what is thus true of individuals is equally true of the 
race. Humanity is but the aggregate of individuals, and 
there is help or redemption for it only where help and redemp- 
tion are to be found for the feeblest soul that makes part of 
it. Nations and the race can be lifted up only as individuals 
are lifted up. Why is Turkey 'the sick man' of Europe? 
Why, mainly, but that Christianity has not been, for these 
many centuries, an element in the thought and life of the 
people ? And what is it that, by common consent, as we 
watch the wondrous change in progress in Japan, is so as- 
suring us of a nobler destiny for that hitherto exclusive 
nation ? What but the indications that Christianity — first, 
in the ideas and usages of our Christian civilization, and 
then through the introduction of the Bible, and as a trans- 
forming faith — is to become a power in minds and hearts 
there ? Christ is the one answer to the universal need. In 
him alone the conditions for the world's spiritual cure and 
elevation anywhere are fulfilled. " Without him we can 
do nothing." Human wisdom, and the pride of reason, and 
the vanity of ' culture/ and the pompous self-sufficiency of 
men unwilling to acknowledge their dependence, may dream 
their dreams, and propose their plans, for the amelioration 
of society, and the regeneration of the world, without him ; 
but they will prove, every one of them, like the empty 
lamps of the virgins — prove only dreams and failures ; and 
from them all the world must turn at length to Christ : 
" Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none 
other name under heaven given among men, whereby we 
must be saved." 

In the power of this truth we are to make ourselves 



84 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

morally mighty ; and only as we become possessed and in- 
stinct with this power, as ministers, as a people, as an 
organized and evangelizing Church, whatever else we may 
have or be, is there any positive and saving work, or any 
desirable Christian future, for us. In this be strong, is the 
one word that comes from all God's voices to us. 



CHAPTER VI. 

SIN. 

It is the penalty of all reform that those who wage it, 
opposing one error or abuse, necessarily incur the risk of 
swinging into another. Perhaps this has had no more strik- 
ing illustration than- is furnished in the rebound from the 
exaggerated doctrines of the sacrificial theology concerning 
sin, — as to its infinite enormity, on the one hand, and as to 
the vindictive and horrible punishment by which only can 
God duly attest His hatred of it, on the other. Not to enter 
into the broad field thus opened, however, it is enough now to 
ask whether we, as a people, have not shared in this extreme 
rebound. Arraigning and controverting these doctrines, have 
we not had speculations among us, and even definitely de- 
clared conclusions, the inevitable effect of which, logically, 
has been either to make sin an inconsiderable affair, a 
slight disturbance which is to be beneficently overruled, or 
to deny that there is really any such thing? Have there 
not been periods in our history, indeed, when such theories 
have to no small extent determined the burden of our pul- 
pits, and the thought of our people ? And do they not 
yet quite largely mingle in the opinions that prevail 
among us ? ■ 

But are such theories morally healthful ? Are they favor- 
able to quickness of conscience, or to a propelling and inex- 
tinguishable sense of obligation? Do they tend to distress 
us with a rebuking consciousness of the guilt of sin, or to 
induce humiliation and penitence on account of it ? In few 
words, are they fitted spiritually to arouse and stimulate 
anybody? to fill anybody with a loathing and abhorrence 
of sin ? to move anybody to feel himself a sinner, and to 
cry out with Paul, " wretched man that I am ! who shall 
deliver me from the body of this death ? " or to stir be- 
lievers or churches to zeal for the conversion of souls ? 

85 



86 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

These are important questions : is it not time that they 
should be seriously pondered ? 

Paul speaks of sin as "exceeding sinful": is it so? 
Conscience recognizes force in the word ought, and there- 
fore recognizes the desert of goodness, and the demerit of 
sin : is conscience thus intimating facts, or only suggesting 
phantasms ? The Bible is a continuous rebuke of sin, de- 
nouncing God's retributions upon it, expostulating against 
it, and pleading that we will abandon it as not only a curse, 
but as in itself a heinous wrong : is the Bible, in all this, 
imposing upon us by using words without meaning ? "These 
inquiries touch points that are vital to all that bears the 
name of moral science, and therefore vital to the whole sub- 
ject of character and life. Of course, I am not ignorant of 
the answers made to them on behalf of the views of sin at 
which they are aimed. But with these answers, and the 
metaphysics they involve, I have now no concern. Such 
metaphysics, splitting hairs, throwing dust, pressing half- 
truths as if they were the whole, or the side of a truth with- 
out regard to its relations, proportions, or qualifications, 
using words that keep their seeming to the ear, but lose or 
change their meaning to the sense, and eliminating the very 
life out of every fundamental moral idea, have been our 
bane. It is time that we were wholly emancipated from 
them. I shall be tempted into no discussion with them 
here. I propose only to deal with the subject practically, 
as it meets us on the pages of the Bible, in our unperverted 
consciousness, and in the instinctive judgments of conscience 
and common sense. I have a conviction — the result of 
years of observation, and that, for some time past, has been 
every year growing deeper and stronger — that we have 
widely failed to feel and enforce the enormity and " exceed- 
ing sinfulness " of sin. Not that we have been indifferent 
to moral obligation, for, as the fact, no people have been 
more keenly alive to such obligation, or more observant of 
it, on its human side ; not that we have not had much sen- 
sitiveness, much faithful preaching, and much sincere shame 
and contrition on account of sin ; but that we have not, as 
a people, been pervaded by any such deep and remorseful 
sense as the Bible demands of what it is as an offence 



sin. 87 

against God, and thus of what it is to be a sinner, an 
unawakened and spiritually thoughtless soul, in His pure 
sight. We have never said, or acted as if we believed, 
that sin is right. Very far from it. But we have quite 
extensively dallied with it, theoretically, as if it were not 
very wrong ; and, naturally, the effect of such theoretical 
dalliance has been a proportionally languid sense of the 
guilt of sin, a proportionally feeble realization of the ne- 
cessity of repentance, and a corresponding indifference to 
the obligations which require a pronounced religious life. 

Under these circumstances, I am satisfied, we need a 
changed style of thinking on this whole subject. A pro- 
founder sense of the absolute wrong of sin — not only in its 
grosser forms, but in all its forms, even in its lightest 
shadings, a keener consciousness of guilt on account of it, 
and a deeper and more thoroughly prostrating conviction of 
the solemnity and imperativeness of the calls which are 
summouing us to penitence and consecration to God, are, I 
believe, among the conditions upon which alone is there for 
us the increase of spiritual power which we so much clesire ; 
nor, I am confident, can our possible destiny as a Church be 
at all fulfilled except as we at once and henceforth take 
higher ground than we have been accustomed to occupy in 
these particulars, and thus commit ourselves to a New 
Departure, theoretically and practically, in this regard. 

A theory was, years ago, extensively current among us, 
which, happily, is now obsolete, to the effect that sin is 
exclusively of the body, not of the soul ; that, amidst all 
the contaminations of wickedness and evil indulgence, the 
soul remains unpolluted, the pure image of God, no party 
in the evil, as a diamond, imbedded in the mire, in no way 
partakes in itself of the surrounding defilement. This 
theory was, and is, so superficial, as well as so opposed — 
as it seems to me — to every dictate of common sense as 
applied to the subject, that it could not retain its hold on 
intelligent minds when even the least degree of moral and 
intellectual science, or psychological knowledge, began to 
assert itself. But it was a mischievous element of our 
denominational life, so far as it ever did prevail ; and if it 
anywhere finds belief now, it finds belief only to the same 



88 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

mischievous effect. It is hardly a doctrine to be in these 
days seriously argued against ; and yet, should there chance 
to be those anywhere still addicted to it on the supposition 
that Paul (Rom. vii.) teaches it, I must beg them to consider 
these weighty words of Dr. Ballou, transposing two or three 
of them at the outset : — 

" It would be a gross mistake to suppose that St. Paul confines sin 
to the body alone, or regards the mind, the spirit, of man as incorrupt. 
He means nothing of this kind, even when he says that he delights 
in the law of God after the inward man, while the law in his members 
wars against the law of his mind, bringing him into captivity 'to the 
law of sin. Indeed, the mere body, or flesh, strictly speaking, can 
never sin, though it may work temptations. When taken by itself, it 
is neither intelligent nor conscious, and is as incapable of moral trans- 
gression as any other unintelligent mass of matter. And even when 
united with mind, as it is in every rational person, it is the mind which 
feels, knows, and acts through the body as its instrument. It is the 
mind which recognizes motives, controls impulses, or yields to them ; 
it is the mind which forms within itself the purpose, whether good or 
bad, and then executes it in overt acts, by means of the body. The 
mind is the real agent ; and it is the mind alone that is guilty and 
condemned, in the case of sin. If it should be said that this contra- 
dicts St. Paul's assertion, that with the mind he served the law of God, 
but with the flesh the law of sin, — we will, for the argument's sake, 
grant, what is not strictly true, that there is a contradiction in words ; 
but is there any in the meaning ? Will any one contend, seriously, 
that, in serving the law of sin, the mind takes no part, neither pre- 
meditates, nor desires, nor balances motives, nor comes to a determina- 
tion, nor wills, nor puts forth the effort ; but that all this is done by 
about a hundred or two pounds of mere bone, flesh and blood, without 
any co-operation of the mental power ? The utter absurdity of the 
supposition ought, of itself, to be a sufficient guard against such a 
misapprehension of the passages referred to. But if this be not enough 
to satisfy every one, the matter will be put at rest by appealing to St. 
Paul's habitual recognition of corrupt, defiled, lustful, reprobate, filthy, 
vain, unrenewed minds and spirit in man. The other writers of the 
New Testament agree with St. Paul on this point. St. James says, 
' The spirit that dwelleth within us, lusteth to envy.' ... St. John 
says, ' Believe not every spirit ; but try the spirits, whether they be of_ 
God.' ... 

" Neither can the blind appetites and propensities of the body sin. 
The farthest they can go in this direction, is, to operate on the mind as 
impulses or incitements to wrong. If the mind does not consent to an 
improper indulgence of them, there is no sin, how strongly soever they 
rage; if it does consent, there is sin, how slightly soever they be felt. . . . 
To use the phrenological nomenclature, ... is it the blind propensity, 
say of destructiveness, or of amativeness, that is conscience-smitten, 



SIN. " 89 

struck with remorse, made wretched, and that sometimes repents ? or is it 
the person, he who indulged these impulses unlawfully ? Which of the 
two is it that commits the sin, and suffers the consequences ? It is 
not the impulses that are either good or bad, except as means. There 
must be an intelligent person to whom they belong, and whose mind, 
whose will, directs them, before they can have any moral character; 
and he alone is either the agent, or the responsible subject. ... It is 
evident [then], that, by the flesh, the body, its members, &c, Paul 
means the domination of the senses, in the mind, to the neglect of the 
spiritual development of our nature. . . . These senses always lie in 
contact with the mind, with the will ; and they communicate to it 
impulses, which must be either controlled or yielded to, by some 
exertion of the mental power. ... If the person voluntarily follows 
these impulses too far, or neglects to restrain them within their proper 
limits, then sin begins, and not till then, — begins and continues in 
his will, or governing faculty." * 

Leaving the notion thus disposed of, out of the case, 
there are two other views which have largely divided our 
church-opinion upon this subject of sin: 1. That which 
assigns sin and every other thought, or aim, or act of man 
directly to God ; and 2. That which, though not directly 
charging sin to Him, represents God as complacent and 
quite well-satisfied with it, because He can so easily, and 
will so certainly, overrule it for good. Both these views are 
to be deprecated, I believe — as grave errors, to be re- 
nounced, and especially as serious hinderances, to be cast 
aside. 

I. The first strikes at the root of all moral verities, and 
transforms the world into a stupendous machine, in which 
men and women, divested of all self-determining power, are 
simply serving the uses of so many wheels and springs. 
What though it is insisted on as the logical sequence of the 
predicate that God reigns, and is alleged to be the inevitable 
conclusion if God is to be at all recognized as a factor in 
human affairs ? The premises are unquestionable ; but the 
conclusion does not follow. The error is in so emphasizing 
God as to ignore man, and in so affirming the Divine Will as 
a factor in human affairs as to make the human will nothing 
but a name. That the Divine Will is a factor in all human 
affairs, no one who believes in a Divine Will doubts ; but 

* Universalist Quarterly, Vol ii., pp. 416, 417, 418, 421. 



90 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

because there is a Divine Will, is there, therefore, no human 
will, except in terms ? Or, because God is sovereign, has 
man, as a distinct and responsible agent, no existence ? 
The sovereignty of God is, doubtless, the foundation on 
which all theology must build, or be, finally, no theology. 
Either there is a God, God over all possible contingencies, 
or there is no God. But man, in his place, is as real as 
God in His ; and to construct a theological system that is 
also an ethical system in fact as well as in name, recognizing 
the play of moral forces and ground for praise or blame, 
man must be assigned a separate, and in a sense, independent 
individuality, and must be so reasoned from, as well as God. 
Alike the Bible and our own consciousness attest that we 
have, each of us, such a distinct personality ; and if there 
is anything I can be said to know, I know that, within 
certain limitations, I am the master of my own actions, and 
therefore -accountable for them. Every moral instinct of my 
being is a lie, if it is not so. 

But the theory before us denies me any such real self- 
hood, and resolves me and everything pertaining to me into 
God. All I do, or will, or think, it avers, is God's will, 
act, or thought, expressing itself through me, as the click 
of the telegraph is the expression of the electric fluid behind 
it. Where, then, is my will ? or my individuality ? or my 
accountability ? Not one of these attributes can, in any 
actual moral sense, be alleged of me, except as it can just 
as well be alleged of the crank of a steam engine, or of a 
falling stone. However the word may be used, there is in 
fact no such thing. 

Nor is this the worst of it. In thus stripping us of all 
power of self-determination, and giving the lie to the Bible 
and our ineradicable sense of freedom and accountability, 
this theory also strips God of His glory as a moral governor. 
He is, if this be true, only an infinite mechanic, or the 
master of a stupendous puppet-show, using souls as so many 
passive pieces of intelligence, precisely as a machinist uses 
his pieces of brass and iron, or as the manager of an 
automatic exhibition directs the movements of his manikins 
by his touch of the wires, or his adjustment of the springs. 
Give whatever name you please to such a system, or call the 



SIN. 91 

means by which God so acts in us, or through us, determin- 
ing what we shall do, motives, influences, or whatever you 
will, looking beneath words to things, the purely mechanical 
nature of the arrangement is manifest. - We are clearly not 
moral beings, — only so many lay figures, curiously con- 
structed to think ourselves self-acting, but going through 
our appointed motions, obeying or disobeying, reverencing 
God, or blaspheming and defying Him, loving and serving 
man, or trampling, defrauding, murdering him, as God 
adjusts and injects the mechanical forces over which He 
presides, and in the midst of which He is all. 

•I hold that these several consequences, not to mention 
others, place the theory which necessitates them outside the 
pale of legitimate argument, as any hypothesis which con- 
travenes known and accepted facts is universally conceded 
to be no subject of argument. Treating the subject on 
common-sense principles, in any fair use of words in their 
ordinary meaning, these consequences are inevitable and 
undeniable, if any result in logic or mathematics can be 
said to be inevitable or undeniable ; and in view of them, 
it is impossible not to ask what there is from which evidence 
can come, that does not protest against such a view of 
God's relations to human life, so issuing in our non-responsi- 
bility, when, stripped of all its metaphysical verbalisms and 
entanglements, it is fairly and nakedly considered ? Espe- 
cially should it be noted as the final fact which closes the 
case against this theory, that it necessarily invalidates all 
moral distinctions, and renders all action, at bottom, of 
precisely the same quality. " Well, then," once asked a 
brother minister of one of the most distinguished advocates 
of this philosophy, at the close of a long debate upon it, 
"to sum up the whole matter in few words, virtue and 
vice, if I understand you, are only names which we give to 
different phases of human activity, that, in their nature, are 
essentially the same, inasmuch as both are equally neces- 
sitated?" " Yes," frankly responded the disputant. And 
to this conclusion, disguise, or seek to evade it, as its advo- 
cates may, the argument at last irresistibly conducts us. 

And these things being so, is it not clear what the prac- 
tical influence of such speculations must be, and that if, as 



92 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

a Church, we are to have any spiritual vitality and power, 
we must be rid of them ? Grant that there have been, and 
are, those holding, or professing to hold, this philosophy, in 
whom conscience and an invincible integrity have been 
stronger than their dangerous theory ; grant even that 
there have been those holding some such theory, who, in an 
exalted consciousness of God's instant and constant pres- 
ence, and under the inspiration and guidance of the re- 
ligious principle thus glowing and regnant within them, 
have so far risen superior to the natural tendency of such 
a method of thinking as to be among the world's examples 
of a rugged and heroic virtue, can there be any reasonable 
doubt as to what its natural tendency is 1* Really taken as 
a direct and positive element into life, must it not impair 
the sense of responsibility, lessen the strenuousness of re- 
ligious motive, and leave one at the mercy of impulse, im- 
pression, or inclination, however it may prompt ? In the 
nature of things, if I actually live out of this philosophy, 
testing myself by its standards, can I, however much a 
sinner, feel guilty, or be moved to prostrate myself before 
God, asking His forgiveness, or be stimulated to self-denial, 
or struggle, or prayerful consecration and work ? Believing 
that there is no separate, personal i", and that what seems 
to be me is only God behind me, can I feel merit, or demerit, 
do what I may ? Or, if some such feeling will assert itself 
in me, in spite of my philosophy, can I do otherwise than 
laugh at it as a curious sensation which has no basis, or jus- 
tification ? 

II. The second of the two theories adverted to, though 
not so fatally mischievous as the first is fitted to be, is 
nevertheless open to much the same condemnation. We 
cannot believe that God is complacent, or satisfied, in view 
of sin, and at the same time feel very seriously troubled 
ourselves because of it. Inevitably, as the human mind 
operates, and under the law of influence to which we are 
subject, attributing such complacency, or satisfaction to 
Him, we shall more or less share in it, and our repugnance 
at sin and our feeling of guilt on account of it will be cor- 
respondingly abated. This being so, no one can affirm 
such complacency, or satisfaction, on God's part, or even 



SIN. 93 

entertain it as a possible hypothesis in respect to sin, with- 
out moral peril. There is moral safety, because there is 
any poignant self-condemnation on account of sin, and any 
abhorrence of it, for us, only as we see it condemned and 
abhorrent in God's sight. 

And if God be the Infinite Holiness, how can sin be 
otherwise than abhorrent to Him ? Being sin, — supposing 
it to be, according to the Bible and the universal moral 
consciousness, man's act or intention, and not His own 
through man as an automaton, it is a denial of Him, or 
rebellion against Him, aiming to pull down what He would 
build up, and to build up what He would destroy. How, 
then, except by denying himself, can He be satisfied or 
complacent with it ? Looking upon His finished creation, 
indeed, if we may credit the record, He "saw everything 
that He had made," and pronounced it "very good." 
This, necessarily, was a satisfaction with man as a part 
of the creation, and this, too, notwithstanding a clear fore- 
sight of his sinfulness ; but the satisfaction was not with 
sin, — only with man in spite of sin, in view of the sublime 
destiny he would ultimately fulfil. With sin, then as now 
and always, God was in essential antagonism. Everything 
in His nature is opposed to it. Every law He has ordained 
is arrayed, eternally and inexorably, against it. It is the 
one element in His universe against which He is everywhere 
in conflict, and for the prevention and expulsion of which 
He is perpetually at work. His enmity to it is thus shown 
to be absolute, unappeasable, — something that cannot be 
qualified, or cease, except as He becomes himself qualified, 
or ceases to be what He is. There is no significance or 
worth in the Bible, if it is not so. If it be not so, there is 
no meaning in language, no such thing as duty ; all the 
invitations and threatenings of God's Word, the life and 
cross of Christ, and all that God has done and is doing os- 
tensibly to persuade us against sin, or to save us from it, 
are but so many pretences ; the voice of conscience and the 
sense of responsibility are deceits ; we are not moral agents, 
but things, without personal centre or value ; and in all 
His so-called moral dealings with us, God is but playing an 
empty game of make-believe, or a monstrous masquerade. 



94 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

These being the facts, I submit that no man, or company 
of men, is at liberty to theorize, or to speculate in any way, 
directly or indirectly, to implicate God with sin, or to com- 
promise this hostility to it so intrinsic and unappeasable in 
Him. Here, unfortunately, is the perversion to which a be- 
neficent interpretation of the universe is — we may almost 
say, unavoidably — liable. Men easily fail to discriminate. 
They are prone to overlook conditions and qualifications, and 
to jump hastily at conclusions. Because we are assured that 
all things are pervaded with a merciful meaning", and that 
even sin is to be somehow made, in spite of itself, to sub- 
serve ultimate purposes of good, far too many leap straight- 
way to the inference that sin is not, then, so very bad, or, 
at most, that while a present curse, it is only the negative 
side of good, — good, like sorrow, with its reverse side 
towards us. Against this perversion, or any approach to 
it, all who reach the sublime assurance of the ultimate tri- 
umph of good have need carefully to guard ; and it is be- 
cause of a failure duly to guard against this that we have, 
so widely, the idea of God's complacency, or satisfaction 
with sin. 

Is it asked, how it happens, conceding God's sovereignty, 
that sin is in the world, if He is not satisfied that it should 
exist ? For myself, I have an answer entirely sufficient 
for my own thought ; but it has no place here. Admit, if 
the reader pleases, that it is impossible for us to answer 
the question except by saying that God is satisfied with sin. 
I hold that answer forbidden by what God is, as well as by 
the moral consequences which inevitably follow. It is a 
contradiction in terms, and as such, in the nature of the 
case, inadmissible — just as much as to say that God can. 
lie. God's intrinsic and invincible antagonism to sin, which 
is but another name for His unshadowed Holiness, is not to 
be impeached because of the limitation of our powers. We 
impugn established human integrity only upon the most 
direct and indubitable proof, however difficult we may find it 
to explain unfavorable appearances, because, as we say, 
what the man is absolutely interdicts suspicion, so long as 
demonstration fails to warrant it. Shall we count God's 
character as something to be less carefully considered ? 



sin. 95 

It is often asked, Why does God permit so much suffering, 

— i. e., why has He chosen a system into which it so ne- 
cessarily enters, if He is not pleased to see the suffering ? 
and, however we may say, and find comfort in saying, that 
He proposes to overrule it, we can give no answer that 
goes to the bottom of the problem, and absolutely solves it. 
Do we, therefore, say that God is pleased to see His chil- 
dren suffer ? The fact that He is Love forbids. Hence, 
we say, We cannot answer, — and are content to trust 
where we cannot see. So with numerous other questions 

— unanswerable except by impeaching God's character. We 
say, Any such answer in effect destroys God, and, being 
thus a self-evident contradiction, becomes, of course, ex- 
cluded from the case. And this is what we are bound to 
say concerning the question before us, even granting that it 
transcends our reply except on the hypothesis, named. It is 
to be held as a fundamental principle that no answer to it 
can be entertained which, so much as by the remotest impli- 
cation, impinges on God's essential and irrepressible antag- 
onism to sin, or authorizes us to think it something concern- 
ing which any other feeling than loathing and abhorrence 
is, under any circumstances, or in any sense, possible in 
Him, or allowable in us. If there be any meaning in the 
Bible, if any reality in Christ, if any significance in our 
own moral instincts, if any holiness or truth in God, sin 
is an evil — in itself, wholly so, an abomination in God's 
sight, and that should be an abomination in ours, — our 
curse now and always, the enemy of God and all good. 
There are no moral facts, if these are not among them ; and 
if they are facts at all, they are facts to which too much 
emphasis cannot be given. There is no danger that we 
shall think too seriously of sin, or regard it as more mon- 
strous, or appalling, than it is, if we but remember that God 
is God, and has told us that it must cease. The danger, as 
has been intimated, is altogether in the other direction ; and 
for the honor of God and our own moral safety we cannot 
too scrupulously, or too constantly, watch against it. 

To the convictions thus, set forth as to the nature and 
tendency of the hypotheses thus passed in review, it is 



96 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

believed, a large majority of our Church has substantially 
arrived. Differences of statement- — possibly differences of 
conception on some points — there may be ; but, in princi- 
ple and general conclusion, we are fundamentally one. We 
are agreed in affirming the wrong of sin, and the need of 
repentance. We stand together on Paul's axiom that sin is 
' exceeding sinful/ We unite in saying that, if the doc- 
trine that God is the author of sin, or that He is satisfied 
with it, or that it is, in His sight, — or may be in ours, — a 
thing of small moment, were Universalism, we could not be 
Universalists ; and that, if Universalism required or author- 
ized anybody to believe and enforce any one of these predi- 
cates, we should be compelled to denounce and oppose it as 
a most pernicious error. We declare, at every opportunity, 
that we have no sympathy with any theology which impli- 
cates God in sin, and no faith in any philosophy of life 
which represents it as a seeming evil, but an actual good. 
We hold sin to be wrong, absolutely, unchangeably. It 
not only seems wrong, we aver ; it is wrong, — wrong not 
only in man's sight, but even more in God's sight ; a viola- 
tion of principles of rectitude ingrained in the nature of 
things, and, so long as it lasts, a canker in souls, and a blot 
upon the otherwise fair face of the universe. 

Having, then, reached these convictions, should we not 
vigorously — more vigorously than ever before — enforce 
them ? If, as we have been circumstanced, in the ardor of 
our polemics, our attention has — almost unavoidably — 
been to some extent diverted from them, should we not 
more assiduously consider how Christ and the apostles dealt 
with this subject, and, following them as our models, hence- 
forth not only affirm — as we always have affirmed — that 
sin will surely be punished, but proclaim its reality and 
heinousness ; seek to arouse men to a sense of guilt because 
of it ; call them to repentance ; and aim to have them 
' pricked in heart/ and moved to prostrate themselves be- 
fore God, crying, ' God be merciful to me, a sinner '" ? In a 
word, should not these convictions more positively and 
vitally appear in our talk, our appeals, and all our methods 
of labor ? Who, indeed, should deal plainly, closely, pun- 
gently, with this subject, if not we ? The enormity of an 



SIN. 97 

offence being always proportionate to the light and the love 
against which it is committed, to whom, of all Christians, 
should sin be so sinful and obnoxious as to us ? or whose 
denunciations of it should be so severe ? or whose sense of 
condemnation on account of it should be so poignant and 
overwhelming ? For who show a Love against which it 
rebels, or from which it departs, or to which it is callously 
insensible, so vast, so tender, so all-embracing, as we ? 
And, on the other hand, who have sanctions so certain and 
impressive, or motives so potent, as ours, by which to send 
home to souls the fact that not only is sin — any sin, all sin 
— a grievous offence against God, but that it is, and must 
be, a sure element of darkness, death and woe ? Others 
talk of the pleasures of sin ; we, never. Others believe 
that it may be committed with impunity ; we pronounce 
this impossible. Sin, our message is, is not only a tramp- 
ling of the commands of a loving Father, but a trifling with 
all the interests of the moral universe. An offence against 
God, it is also death and hell to every soul who serves it. 
Why, then, should we not commit ourselves to the New 
Departure which alike the letter and spirit of our faith thus 
demand, emphasizing beyond all others the enormity of sin, 
and the guilt of those who yield themselves to it, as these 
things are pressed upon us, — so rendering it henceforth im- 
possible that we shall, in any quarter, be charged with be- 
littling sin, as, with apostolic unction and zeal, we hold it 
up in the light of Divine realities, summoning to repentance 
and newness of life ? 

The glory of Universalism is in the harmony of God's 
sovereignty and man's accountability, and in the distinct- 
ness with which, pointing to the cross of Christ, it proclaims 
the wrong of sin, and the certainty of God's triumph over 
it. Be it ours, while abating nothing from the distinctness 
with which we prophesy this latter fact, to give new stress 
and power to the former. There is much of good in the 
world for us to thank God for ; but there is much also of 
evil for us to mourn over and labor against. As in the 
Apostle's time, despite all that Christianity has accomplished 
in the enlightenment and salvation of souls, and the creation 
of a new and higher civilization, it is still true, alas ! that 
7 






98 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

"the whole world lieth in wickedness. " This state of 
things it is ours, if we have any part or lot with Christ, to 
help to remedy. As a Church, we have no other final pur- 
pose. But how is it to be remedied ? By no gentle dalli- 
ance with iniquity ; by no rose-colored optimism ; by no 
loose theories about moral distinctions, or the nature of 
moral obligation ; by no exaggeration of God's sovereignty, 
or one-sided talk about His love. It can be remedied only 
as the truth, the whole truth, is preached, with all its sanc- 
tions, in its due relations and its Divine proportions ; only 
as, while men are told that God is sovereign, and are pointed 
to His boundless, pleading, patient, inextinguishable love, 
they are pressed also with their own responsibility and ob- 
ligations, and are thus awakened to see, and, in the quick 
of their being, to feel, what a thing demanding confession 
and humiliation, and therefore demanding penitence and 
self-renunciation, sin is. Only thus can any effectual war- 
fare against the wrong of the world be accomplished, or 
anything be done to lead souls home to God through the 
saving power of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Shall we heed the lesson, and give ourselves earnestly to 
the New Departure to which we are thus called ? 



CHAPTER VII. 

SALVATION. 

We need no New Departure as to the fact or extent of 
salvation ; but do we not need one in the way of a more 
direct and personal enforcement of its nature and terms ? 

It was related, several years since, of a Belgian noble- 
man, condemned to death for murder, that as the officers, 
who had come to prepare him for execution, were about to 
leave him, one of them said, " You have now nothing to 
think of but the welfare of your soul," — and that he replied, 
" 0, that is the priest's affair." He was a Catholic, and 
was thus an example of what Catholic education can do in 
emptying one of personal concern as to his spiritual welfare. 
But does he not also strikingly illustrate a form of thought 
in respect to this subject quite too common among people 
of all sects, and of no sect, throughout Christendom, and 
among many who call themselves Universalists as well as 
others ? 

I remember to have once read a communication in one of 
our papers, in which the writer indignantly complained that, 
as a member of a choir, he had, not long before, been re- 
quired to sing, 

" A charge to keep, I have, 
A God to glorify, — 
A never-dying soul to save, 
And fit it for the sky ; " 

and so incensed was he, he declared, at the abhorrent senti- 
ment, especially of the last two lines, that he refused to 
sing the words. To the same effect, preaching on exchange, 
some years ago, from the text, "What must I do to be 
saved ? " and trying to press home the question as one 
which we all have as much occasion as the jailer to ask, I 
so shocked a good woman of the congregation that she ran 

99 



100 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

in alarm to her (supplying) minister, urging him to preach 
at once from the same text, to counteract my heresy, and 
expressing her fear that I was ' going over to the ortho- 
dox ; ! And the minister, — an eminent one, — sharing in 
her condemnation of the heresy, preached as requested, and 
showed, no doubt to the general satisfaction, that the jailer's 
question had no religious bearing, and that, though we 
should be concerned in appropriating the blessings of the 
Gospel in this world, it is taking God's business out of 
His hands to ask any such question about our future sal- 
vation. 

These instances — and many similar ones might be given, 
were it necessary — were not recent; but do they not very 
significantly indicate the quality of much of the thought 
which has been current among us, and which is still to be 
somewhat found ? The misapprehension is not the same as 
the Belgian Catholic's ; but is it not nearly akin to it, only 
substituting God for the priest? This is the idea, — that 
God has so ' fixed ' things in Christ that our salvation here- 
after is their ' affair,' not ours at all ; and that, while we 
may properly be anxious to live a good life here, we have 
no concern as to what is beyond, since it is certain that 
God and Christ have us so in charge that we have only to 
die to find ourselves, whether we have lived a good life or 
a bad one, safely in heaven. Our 'evangelical' friends 
must not think to use this statement against us, for, though 
it lies somewhat differently in minds accepting their doc- 
trines, this same essential idea that our future immortal sal- 
vation is primarily God's ' affair,' is found nowhere more 
common, and scarcely anywhere in more mischievous forms, 
than, in one shape or another, among them. In fact, as it 
exists among us. though formally put in another way, it is 
only a part of the undesirable inheritance we have derived 
from them. Happily, in our case, as has heretofore been 
stated, the doctrine in which this idea as found among us 
had its origin is not now prevalent as formerly ; and yet — 
so do mischievous notions survive in effect long after they 
in form are dead — it is to be feared that, despite our im- 
proved theory as to the relations of character here to con- 
dition hereafter, our popular denominational thought is 



SALVATION. 101 

largely pervaded and vitiated by the old leaven, first, of 
' orthodoxy/ as to what salvation is, and then, of that stage 
of our doctrinal development which put all souls at once into 
heaven at death, as to why salvation is none of our ' affair.' 
Under these circumstances, we need a thorough review 
of the whole ground, and thus need to have a New Depart- 
ure in a general and systematic presentation of this grand 
Gospel theme of salvation, such as not a few have always 
been accustomed to give, which will put our whole Church 
more distinctly upon the true basis, and thus secure the 
direct and personal enforcement of the conditions of salva- 
tion which meets us everywhere in the Bible. For, con- 
sider, where can we read any treatment of this topic in the 
Bible, and not find ourselves pressed with what we have to 
do, as well as encouraged by what God has done and will 
do ? Well would it be for us all could this fact be un- 
derstood in all its bearings and admonitions. I know of 
nothing, indeed, doctrinally, for which the whole Christian 
world is more suffering to-day than for an accurate concep- 
tion of this subject as the Bible presents it, and especially 
as it lay in the thought of our Lord ; and for ourselves, I 
am satisfied there is scarcely another truth of the Gospel a 
clear understanding of which, in all its relations, would do 
so much for us in clarifying the whole current of our opin- 
ions, and in securing that wiser and more effective apprecia- 
tion of motive and obligation which is our great lack. 

What is salvation ? Much would be done to simplify the 
subject, and to send it home with fresh power to consciences 
and hearts, if a proper understanding of the answer to this 
question could but be secured. Words falsely defined con- 
fuse thought, by suggesting meanings or distinctions which 
have no existence in fact. The creeds have long made sal- 
vation, not at all an inward process, but an external rescue, 
and a happy admission into heaven ; and so ingrained has 
this idea become in the popular thought, determining and 
perverting every conception in the case, that, as Dr. Ballou 
once said, in substance, though they " have decidedly rejected 
it in its naked form, it enters more or less into the habitual 
impressions of Universalists themselves, so as to affect their 



102 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

language and their forms of argument. " But the Bible no- 
where indicates, or warrants any such idea. " Thou shalt 
call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their 
sins." This epitomizes the invariable burden of the Bible 
on this point. And to be saved from sin is — what but to 
be helped to be good ? And wishing to be good — how, 
anywhere, are we to reach this result ? How, under God, 
but by personal resolve and effort ? What, then, have we 
but the whole doctrine of salvation through Christ, as to 
substance and method, summed up in these few words — 
showing that salvation is a deliverance from igiforance and 
sin, in a growing goodness, attained through our own per- 
sonal resolve and effort, in an acceptance of Christ's help, 
under God's blessing ? And could this but be once generally 
perceived and felt, would any further misconception as to 
whose ' affair ' salvation is be possible ? or should we be 
likely to see so much indifference and neglect concerning it ? 
God is over all in respect to our salvation, it is true, and 
as " His unspeakable gift," Christ is " made unto us wisdom, 
and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." This 
the whole New Testament teaches. But are we anywhere 
independent of God ? Is He not in a like sense over all in 
every department of our interests, and wherever blessings 
of whatever sort are possible to us, does He not graciously 
bestow the help and opportunity in the improvement of which 
we are to attain them ? In no single instance, however, 
are we absolved from the necessity of accepting the help 
and improving the opportunity, if the blessing is to be en- 
joyed. Personal effort, indeed, co-operating with God in the 
use of the means He has bestowed, is not this, look where 
we will, the one cardinal and inexorable condition of all 
real attainment and success ? In intellectual pursuits, in 
secular prosperities, who expects to be anything, or to ac- 
complish anything, save as he himself works for it ? And 
holding in respect to everything else, is it reasonable to sup- 
pose that this law is suspended only in respect to moral in- 
terests and spiritual possessions — the most precious of all ? 
Nay, by the very necessities of the case, must it not hold 
even more rigorously as the price of these ? Even more 
rigorously, I say : for one may come into wealth, or eminent 



SALVATION. 103 

social or political position, and so attain to what passes 
for success by inheritance, or through favoring circum- 
stances. But who can inherit goodness — as a positive 
quality ? Or, however propitious circumstances may be, 
who ever was made, or can be made, spiritually wise and 
consecrate by them, except as he or she has willed and 
wrought, or does will and work, to become so ? There is, 
indeed, a kind of negative goodness, the result of a happily 
balanced temperament and the absence of any occasion of 
evil — as a vegetable stalk stands erect because nothing has 
touched it to bend it, or as a brook runs a certain undeviat- 
ing course because its banks enclose it, and nothing inter- 
poses to divert it. But such goodness has no absolute 
moral worth; is only the innocence of a child, not the 
tried virtue, or the rugged, resolute Tightness of a man. 
This positive goodness must be acquired — often through 
wrestling, resistance, and hard-earned victory, — always as 
the fruit, under God, of our own purpose and exertion. 
Nobody can make me thus good — with becoming reverence, 
is it too much to say that, unless by annulling all the laws 
of my moral nature, and dealing with me as a thing, and not 
as a soul, God himself cannot make me thus good ? — except 
as I am myself moved to desire and labor to become so. 

And this is no temporary appointment, we have reason to 
believe. The Bible and all that belongs to the case indi- 
cate that it is a perpetual law, because inherent in the very 
constitution of the human soul and the methods of influ- 
ence God has ordained for it. It is not a thing of time, or 
place, therefore. Holding here, it holds with equal inflexi- 
bility wherever the soul as a soul may go, in whatever 
states or stages of its being. Live where, or as long as, or 
under whatever circumstances the soul may, the continuity 
of its life is simply the continuity of its consciousness and 
its powers, and the instant and constant assertion of the 
same essential spiritual laws. Destroy this consciousness, 
impair these powers, or suspend these laws, and the reality 
and identity of its life are so far suspended or destroyed. 
Hence, wherever they may be, so long as souls remain the 
same moral entities and agents, they must not only carry 
the same moral consciousness and retain the same moral 



104 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

powers, but must be subject to substantially the same spirit- 
ual laws. 

What, then, follows ? Identical as our growing good- 
ness and our salvation are, salvation can pertain no more to 
the future immortal world than goodness, and is, therefore, 
to be reached, there or anywhere, only on the same condi- 
tions. We are saved here just in the same way, and just 
so far, as through the help and uplifting power of Christ, 
we become good here ; and hereafter, we can be saved in no 
other way and to no other extent. Salvation there, there- 
fore, is dependent on our own faith and choice, on our own 
effort and self-surrender, precisely as, and for the same 
reason that, our growth in virtue and Christian character is 
dependent on these conditions here. Salvation anywhere is 
possible only as goodness is possible. 

The conclusion is apparent. If salvation, either here or 
hereafter, seems to us a thing to be at all desired, we are to 
understand that it is, under God, our concern exactly in the 
same sense as any advance in knowledge, or goodness, or 
as any attainment of desirable qualities or possessions, is 
our concern, and is to be realized only as we pay the ex- 
acted price of choosing and working for it. Sin being the 
voluntary surrender of ourselves to motives and purposes 
alien to God and good, salvation must, necessarily, be our 
equally voluntary election of better motives and purposes. 
In other words, if we are to be directly and personally 
benefited by Christ as our Saviour anywhere, not only 
is there something for us to believe, but something for us to 
do ; not only something to be done for us, but something 
to be done by us. Christianity, that is to say, is no 
moral ' labor-saving machine. 7 It opens no free bridge, it 
places us on no royal road to heaven ; and God's plan of re- 
demption in Christ is no contrivance to get us saved, pas- 
sively, — only a means whereby, co-operating with God, 
under the lead of Christ, we may save ourselves. 

How but in this form does the Bible invariably present 
the subject? Its word in reference to this world is, " If any 
will not work, neither shall he eat ; " and it has just as lit- 
tle indulgence for indolence in respect to the bread of ever- 
lasting life. It says to us in our secular and business rela- 



SALVATION. 105 

tions, " Work with your own hands : . . . that ye may 
walk honestly, . . . and have lack of nothing ; " and even 
when most positively certifying us of the time when, " at 
the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow, . . . and every 
tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of 
God the Father," it says to us with still more emphasis in 
our spiritual relations, " Wherefore, . . . work out your 
own salvation with fear and trembling," — or with anxiety 
and self-distrust (Conybeare and Howson). And this is 
the manner in which this side of the subject is always pre- 
sented. Thus, in the Old Testament, the summons is, 
" Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him 
while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the 
unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the 
Lord, and He will have mercy upon him, and to our God, 
for He will abundantly pardon : " — and this, too, in con- 
nection with the most positive assurance that God's pur- 
pose of grace shall, beyond all peradventure, be accom- 
plished. And in the New Testament, the word is, " I am 
the door ; by me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved." 
"Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." 
Christ, we are told, "became the author of eternal salvation 
unto all them that obey him," and " is able to save them to 
the uttermost that come unto God by him.'' 1 The Bible knows 
nothing of any salvation through Christ that is not dependent 
on these and like conditions. 

And these are conditions, let it be noted, that imply much 
more than saying, I believe in Christ, — or, I am sorry, — 
or, God, help me ; and therefore forbid any theory of sal- 
vation which warrants a man in thinking that he can, all his 
days, live a life of godlessness and crime, and then, through 
some technical formula, ' swing from the gallows into glory/ 
as the Methodist divine, Rev. Dr. Abel Stevens, once ex- 
pressed it, or on his death-bed, suddenly call a minister, and 
through his shriving, find himself in a few minutes in 
heaven. The conditions specified imply not simply a mo- 
mentary penitence, but an entire revolution in the soul ; a 
change not only in the direction, but in the whole quality 
and substance of life. It is not barely a crisis that they 
demand, but a regenerative process, purifying and uplifting 



106 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

the \yhole man in a christianized and sanctified character. 
Goodness is character of the right sort. Hence only by faith, 
penitence, resolve, effort, taking hold of Christ, and becom- 
ing transmuted into whitened and holy character, thus at- 
tuning the soul with God, can these conditions of salvation 
be fulfilled, or can a soul find itself really redeemed. But 
all this is the work of time. Sudden, even instantaneous 
changes there may be, and frequently are, in thought, 
aim, purpose. Living heedlessly or badly, one may be sud- 
denly arrested and resolve upon a better life. And for- 
giveness, acceptance there is for the prodigal, however much 
a prodigal he may have been, in proportion as he renounces 
his past and rises into something better. But salvation, 
as a completed state of the soul, ending in what the Bible 
calls heaven, is a different thing, and is possible only as a 
completely renovated character is possible, wrought out 
through the help of Christ, by the soul's own struggles and 
effort, and taking form in a goodness that knows no taint 
of sin. 

But this is salvation by works, perhaps it will be said, 
whereas the New Testament peremptorily declares that we 
are " saved by grace, not of works/ 7 and that " eternal life is 
the gift of God." Very true, the New Testament does so 
affirm ; and a most encouraging and comforting sense of 
God's merciful thoughtfulness it gives us so to believe. 
But in the words of Dr. Ballou, " so far as we have observed, 
every text which asserts that salvation is of grace, or not 
of works, speaks of it, at the same time, as experienced in 
this life, and effected by moral influences, — as, ' By grace 
are ye saved [that is, already saved], through faith ; ' so 
that, after all, it is the same salvation which is represented, 
in other passages, as attained by human agency." * Nobody 
supposes that salvation, so far as we here experience it in 
a growing holiness and spirituality, is something conferred 
upon us independent of o*ur own faith or purpose. It is 
something we attain in the use of the means furnished. 

* Universalist Expositor, 1840, pp. 45, 46. Should these pages fall 
into the hands of any who have not read this paper of Dr. Ballou, on The 
New Testament Doctrine of Salvation, let me urge them to procure and 
read it at the first opportunity. 



SALVATION. 107 

Hence, evidently, it is to these means, and not to salvation 
as an end accomplished, that reference is made when it is 
said that salvation is of grace, and that eternal life is the 
gift of God. The means have been freely bestowed, and 
God is ever pleading with us to accept and use them ; but 
they avail nothing except as they are used in compliance 
with the appointed conditions ; nor, though they have been 
so freely given, can we hope for anything, either here or be- 
yond, on account of them, only as we appropriate them, 
seeking to enter into life through them. 

Reference was made, at the opening of this chapter, to 
those who expect salvation on the supposition that they 
have only to die to find themselves, without care or agency 
of theirs, happy in heaven — just as they came into this 
world, from their pre-natal state, through birth, or just as 
some kindly power might transfer them from a home of pov- 
erty, on one side of the street, to a splendid mansion on the 
other. But even granting the correctness of the theory of 
the Resurrection on which this expectation proceeds, how 
can the mere getting into a place called heaven consummate 
the spiritual change which salvation involves ? Heaven is 
a place, no doubt, beautiful, glorious, beyond our conception. 
But will getting into the place make any one blessed, as one 
becomes warm by going into a heated room ? Surely not. 
Holiness, harmony with God, is the essence of its felicity ; 
and without this, though the place were ten thousand times 
more glorious, happiness would be impossible there. Really, 
then, heaven is a state of the soul, rather than a place in 
which the soul lives ; and one entering the place, can find it 
heaven only as he carries in himself the fulfilled conditions 
of its blessedness. Concede, therefore, that the Resurrec- 
tion is, as is so commonly supposed, simply our passing on 
into another realm of being, — our rising out of this mortal 
into an immortal life, what can it do towards putting into a 
soul these fulfilled conditions of blessedness? A soul cannot 
be emptied or stripped of its sin by any such change of place, 
as a bottle may be emptied of its contents, or a body be 
stripped of a garment in such a transit ; nor can it be filled 
or clothed with holiness, as a jar may have some pure 
liquid poured into it, or a body be clad in a clean garment. 



108 OUR' NEW DEPARTURE. 

As Dr. Ballou has well said, " He knows little of our nature 
who imagines that faith and righteousness can be communi- 
cated to the mind, without any agency on our part, as 
water may be poured into a vessel or passive receiver ; for 
faith and righteousness are themselves but exercises of the 
understanding and affections. They are the results of 
active thought and feeling. 7 ' Sin or holiness is a state of 
the affections ; a condition or posture of the mind and 
heart. Change places, change worlds even, though we do, 
we are not changed save as our affections, our minds and 
hearts are changed. Go where we may, therefore, we cannot 
pass out of the necessity of our own right will and effort, 
and so of our own moral activity, as the one irremissible 
price of salvation, for the reason that we are moral beings, 
and that salvation concerns us — not as a mechanical work, 
as if we were things, but as a moral process, " implying the 
exercise of conscience and free-will," in the recognition of the 
fact that we are souls. Whatever may be true, then, as to the 
manner in which we might be dealt with if we were things, 
there clearly can be no moral action, or result, except as 
our moral faculties move and concur to produce it ; and were 
it possible for us to be saved through the Resurrection, 
without this, we should be saved as things, not as souls. 

As has been said on one of our earlier pages, no one can 
tell what is to be the effect of the soul's emancipation from 
the body into the new circumstances of the Immortal Life. 
No theory of salvation is complete, or scriptural, that does 
not duly take into account all the possibilities of this eman- 
cipation, and of the soul's new surroundings in consequence. 
But do new circumstances and associations here, of them- 
selves, transform us ? Transport one who has lived a low 
and sensual life from all such associations into the best and 
most spiritually electric companionships, and do you there- 
by make him moral and religious ? Such a change of cir- 
cumstances is favorable to a better life, if one will accept 
what they give, and choose and will as they suggest. Not 
otherwise. They have no necessary or instantaneous trans- 
forming power. And if not here, why hereafter, even 
though the body is thrown aside, since character is not of 
the body, but of the soul ? Admit all that can be properly 



SALVATION. - 109 

claimed as to the helpful tendency of such changed circum- 
stances towards a corresponding change of character, still 
this much we know by virtue of our nature as moral beings 
— that as one here transferred from vicious to virtuous as- 
sociations, must himself choose and work towards goodness, 
if he is to become really good, so a similar exercise of our 
moral faculties must always be necessary, wherever we may 
be, if we are to reach any actual attainment in personal 
holiness. Hereafter as certainly as here, therefore, salva- 
tion is possible to any soul only as, in such an exercise of 
its own powers, it believes, repents, and, clasping Christ, 
says, Lord, thou art mine ; help me to be wholly thine, — 
working meantime to climb upward and be like him. 

And this, there are those of us who think, as we read 
the New Testament, is what is signified by the Resurrection : 
not the mere passage of the soul forward into another 
sphere of being, but its gradual regeneration ; its rising 
out of selfishness into all large and holy affections, out of 
all impiety and impurity and earthliness into the image of 
Christ, and therefore into harmony and communion with 
God; as Paul puts it, its deliverance "from the bondage 
of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the children of 
God/' If this be so, then we have something to do in the 
very process of the Resurrection. And what but this does 
the Apostle mean (Phil. iii. 10, 11), when, describing his 
spiritual struggles, he says, " That I may know him, and 
the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his 
sufferings, being made comformable unto his death, if by any 
means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead " ? 

At all events, not to make a point of this, whatever the 
Resurrection, it cannot relieve us from the necessity of car- 
ing for our salvation as our personal concern — as the Bible 
everywhere assures us it is. The bowing of the knee to 
Christ, and the confession of him as Lord, not in word only, 
but in the surrender of our whole being to his authority, 
and in the taking on of his image, are the New Testament 
symbols of our redemption. This is a personal, and must 
be a willing, bowing and confession ; and so long as these, 
or the faith and effort, the consecration and resolve thus 
signified, are postponed, be we where we may, our salvation 



110 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

will be postponed — be postponed until, of our own will, 
in response to the pleadings of God's grace, and in the use 
of Christ's help, we seek and find it. And we are Univer- 
salists, the most of us, only because we see a time when 
the most unbelieving will be awakened to faith, and the 
most obdurate be melted into contrition, and those most ut- 
terly lost and dead in the decay of will and spiritual faculty 
be quickened to call on God and resolve towards home, and 
when, therefore, all will be saved because all, through 
Christ as the Way, have sought and found the salvation 
God has provided for them. 

To the general view thus presented, we are, as a Church, 
undeniably committed. It is our denominational position, 
so far as the pronounced convictions of the great majority 
of our ministers and most thoughtful people can deter- 
mine this position. Shall we not, then, by common consent, 
have a New Departure as to our way of putting the subject, 
so that while God and Christ and their work shall be fully 
recognized, salvation shall henceforth . be urged by us — not 
as their concern exclusively, but as ours, — a result finally 
dependent, under God, solely upon ourselves and our own 
resolve and endeavor ? And shall not our summons, with 
great ardor and strenuousness, be, souls that would be 
saved, see what you have at stake, and be up and doing ? 
Was it not so that Christ preached ? Was it not so that 
the Apostles preached ? Is it not thus that Christianity con- 
stantly addresses a world estranged from God, and needing 
to be spiritually vitalized and reconciled to Him ? How 
else have the indifferent ever been aroused, or the thought- 
less stirred to attention, or the sinful awakened to penitence 
and amended living ? Or, how else can we expect to 
become an awakening power to torpid, unbelieving, sin- 
cankered souls, or to see among us that sense of personal 
concern and that increased religious earnestness which we 
so much need ? Men give little attention to that in respect to 
which they feel that they have nothing to do. If, therefore, 
we would be a life-giving power in the world, and see those 
to whom our message comes really moved with respect to 
spiritual things, inquiring with kindled hearts concerning 



SALVATION. Ill 

their own salvation, and interested in furthering the salva- 
tion of others, we must be rid of the idea that salvation 
is, in any sense, a thing with which we have nothing to do, 
and, with something of prophetic and apostolic unction, 
first of all applying the words to ourselves, must take up 
the old cries, " Cast away from you all your transgres- 
sions, and make you a new heart and a new spirit : for why 
will ye die?" and, "As though God did beseech you by 
us, we pray you in Christ's stead, Be ye reconciled to 
God." 

This idea that our salvation anywhere is God's ' affair,' 
and not our pressing personal concern, has wrought us 
great harm ; it will not cease to be a leaven of harm, so 
long as it at all survives among us. " What must I do to be 
saved?" we should hereafter cause it to be understood, is 
a question which we have, every one of us, occasion to ask 
with profound solicitude. Not, What shall I do to insure 
rescue from the wrath of God, and perdition in hell ? — as 
one is rescued from deserved hanging, or from drowning ; 
but, What shall I do to be saved from sin and its darkness"" 
and absence from God ? What shall I do to become pure, 
unselfish, Christ-like, thoroughly good, — superior to temp- 
tation, and growing in freedom from sin ? This is the 
grand question — not particularly with reference to the pres- 
ent, not particularly with reference to the future ; but with 
reference to the everlasting- Now in which we are always 
living, and always shall live, and because holiness alone is 
life, and any lack of harmony with God is spiritual poverty, 
death and woe. Only as we ask this question and act upon 
the sense of personal concern which it expresses, can we 
become Christians here, or find our way among the redeemed 
hereafter ; and only as we awaken others thus to ask and 
act, are we following in the steps of Christ and the Apos- 
tles, or beginning to do the work of a Christian Church. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

CONVERSION. 

Theoretically, the Bible doctrine of Conversion has no 
more strenuous advocates than Universalists. No faith in 
what is called ' miraculous conversion ' is pretended, 'for the 
reason that we have no faith in the doctrine of Human 
Depravity from which it logically comes. Nor does the 
Bible authorize any such theory of conversion. Were we 
to judge from the manner in which the subject is commonly 
urged, indeed, it would be supposed — as many do suppose 
— that the Scriptures are full of the doctrine of conversion 
as a supernatural process, enforced by some word having a 
single fixed meaning, standing for just this and nothing else 
* — as it ought to be, if the traditional teaching as to its 
nature were correct, since, on this theory, there is nothing 
in the universe analogous to it. But the fact is quite other- 
wise. Not only is conversion, as enjoined in the Bible, as 
simple and as easy to be understood as any other change of 
purpose, but the word is used "in all manner of connec- 
tions, for all sorts of purposes and with the utmost freedom ; 
is just as common a word as turning, or going. It signifies 
simply, to turn from one state or condition to another, and 
is used of one who turns from duty as well as of one who 
turns to it, having just as many uses as the word turn, 
physical, moral, secular, religious/' When it is said, "Let 
your laughter be turned to mourning," precisely the same 
word is used as when our Lord says to Peter, " When thou 
art converted, strengthen thy brethren." When it is recorded 
that " Jesus turned Mm about in the press, and said, Who 
touched my clothes ? " the same word is used as when we 
read, " He which converteth the sinner from the error of his 
way shall save a soul from death," and as when our Lord 
says, " Except ye be converted, and become as little children, 
ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." 

112 



CONVERSION. ,113 

Nor is this all. As a verb, the word is always put by 
our trauslators in the passive form, implying that the thing 
is done to, or for, and not by us. Thus we read, " And 
sinners shall be converted unto thee/' — and of the Jews, 
that they had closed their eyes, "lest at any time they 
should see with their eyes, and be converted," and in the 
passage above cited, " Except ye be converted, and become 
as little children." But the original, those who have 
studied the subject assure us, gives no warrant for this, and 
one writer * says that he does " not recall an instance where 
the verb in the original has this passive form." Instead, 
therefore, of the statement, " And sinners shall be converted 
unto thee," we should read, " And sinners shall turn, or 
return, unto thee ; " and instead of, " Repent ye, therefore, 
and be converted," we should read, " Repent and turn, or 
return." When the translators give us the word turn 
instead of convert, they put it in this active form, implying 
that the action is on our part, as when we read that " a 
great number believed and turned — or as the expression is 
made elsewhere, were converted — unto the Lord." 

What, then, is the conclusion, these things being so ? 
This, clearly, — that, as one turns his body from one attitude 
to another, or, if away from home, may return to it, — as 
one, even, who is going the right way, may turn about and 
pursue the wrong, so, in the same sense of simple turning, 
involving nothing more strange or supernatural, and imply- 
ing a precisely similar exercise of one's choice, conversion 
is the turning of a soul from a state of unbelief, or indiffer- 
ence, or worldiness, or sin, to a condition of faith and re- 
ligious resolve and endeavor. It is something as purely 
voluntary on our part, — something as entirely depending 
on the personal exercise of our own faculties, and therefore 
as much within our own election and determination as the 
change of an idler into studiousness, — as the reform of one 
who resolves on abstinence instead of drunkenness, — or 



*Rev. S. Judd, I think — in an excellent sermon, from which my 
notes had made the quotation in the preceding paragraph. I have 
looked for the sermon in vain. I wished to verify my impression as to the 
author, and to make other extracts, — possibly to give further credit. 
8 



114 OUE NEW DEPARTURE. 

as is anything else of which we are accustomed to say that it 
is wholly at our option. God has furnished the means, in all 
that He has taught us, and especially in all that He has 
given us in His Son ; and amidst these instructions, appeals 
and awakening agencies, supplemented always by the striv- 
ings and pleadings of God's Holy Spirit, as Christ says, 
"Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall not 
enter into the kingdom of heaven, " it is for us to say 
whether we will turn or not, and when we will turn, and 
how far we will turn, and therefore to what extent we will 
be converted, or will convert ourselves, and enter upon a 
new and nobler life. 

The single idea of conversion, it thus appears, is that it 
is a quickening of the soul to spiritual consciousness and 
activity ; an awakening to a sense of our relations, interests 
and obligations, in consequence of which we resolutely set 
ourselves God-ward, — turning, according to our particular 
state and needs, from a life somehow below what we should 
live, to the life which God and our own welfare demand. 
Hence, naturally, " Wash you ; make you clean ; put away 
the evil of your doings from before mine eyes ; cease to do 
evil ; learn to do well/' is the manner in which it is enforced 
in the Old Testament ; and the New Testament, in different 
words, enjoins precisely the same thing. This is illustrated 
in the words of our Lord just now mentioned, " Except ye 
be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not 
enter into the kingdom of heaven." The disciples had been 
ambitiously disputing who should be greatest in the king- 
dom. Thereupon the Master placed a little child before 
them, telling them that, unless they renounced all such self- 
ish ambition, and returned to the simplicity and guileless- 
ness of their childhood, they could not even enter into his 
kingdom, much less be greatest in it. His words, no doubt, 
had a special application to them ; but they very distinctly 
set forth the radical idea of conversion, in its Bible sense. 
Though one who has battled with temptation, and who is 
pure through conflict and victory, has qualities which can- 
not pertain to the untried innocence of a little child, child- 
hood is, nevertheless, a fitting type of that simple, docile, 
loving state of mind and heart becoming the Christian disci- 



CONVERSION. 115 

pie. As children, our hearts had not become hardened or 
cold. We were not sordid, worldly, or artificial. Our af- 
fections were uppermost in us, and were tender and true. 
And to this state, so far as we have fallen from it, Christ 
teaches us, in his doctrine of conversion, we must return as 
men and women, if we would be members of his spiritual 
family, subjects and citizens in the kingdom of God. 

But our -Lord's most impressive illustration of the true 
doctrine of conversion is given us, perhaps, in the parable 
of the prodigal son. In his self-sufficiency, the prodigal 
had gone away from his father, and from all the privileges 
and plenty of his father's house, forgetting alike his duty 
and his interests as a son. But at last, in " a far country, 
he came to himself." How much there is in these four 
words expressive of the insensibility and moral unconscious- 
ness of a soul away from God, and lost to all sense of obli- 
gation to Him, — " he came to himself" ! Famishing, he 
began to think. Conscience and affection, so long be- 
numbed, asserted themselves.. Becoming self-conscious, his 
eyes were opened to see where and what he was, in painful 
contrast with what and where he should be. He thought 
of his father, and of the love which had sheltered and 
blessed him, but which he had so trampled and forgotten. 
He thought of his home and its abundance, while, the com- 
panion of swine, he was perishing with hunger. And what 
thereupon did he do ? Did he wait for some magic influ- 
ence outside himself to transform him into a loving and 
obedient son ? Did he say, When 'tis time, my father will 
somehow make me penitent and dutiful, or some kindly 
power will take me home ? No. He felt that the respon- 
sibility was with himself; that he had strayed, and squan- 
dered, and sinned ; and that it was for him to repent, and 
to resolve and act towards amendment. So he said, u I 
will arise, and go to my father" "And he arose, and came 
to his father." That was his conversion, his turning back, 
his return to his duty and its joy. Nor, as we see him re- 
stored to the dear old home, clasped, forgiven, in his father's 
arms, and rich once more in all the bounties of his father's 
house, have we occasion to look for anything beyond this 
simple resolve, " I will arise, and go to my father" and the 



116 OUR NEW DEPASTURE. 

rising and going which followed; to explain how and why he 
is a converted man. 

In this work of conversion, there may be a violent and 
remorseful experience, a marked crisis, when one is aware 
of being brought to a stand, and of being born out of the 
lower into the higher life, or not, according to one's moral 
temperament, or the nature of the antecedent life. If the 
life has been godless, vicious, unprincipled, such a crisis is 
inevitable ; and the hour of spiritual awakening, of reflec- 
tion, self-condemnation, repentance and resolve, such as is 
represented in the prodigal's case, and through which only 
can one who has so lived pass out of the bad into the good, 
or into an attempt towards the good, is this crisis. But if 
one has been living an upright life, animated by honorable 
and conscientious motives, only has not been religiously 
awakened, — has not been affected by the thought of God's 
love, and by the power of Christ's cross, and so has not 
been moved to prayer and a determined self-dedication to 
God, — then there is no occasion for any such violent crisis. 
The thing needed is a profound and thorough awakening of 
the heart — a subduiug sense of the sinfulness of all with- 
holding of one's self from the love of God and the religious 
life, in a consciousness of direct and personal obligation. 
One may say, At such a time, pointing to place and date, 
I was aroused to reflection, penitence and religious concern, 
and resolved, God helping me, to turn directly about, and 
give myself to a life of prayer, and spiritual culture, and 
Christian endeavor. Another may say, As I compare my 
feelings and the present tone and aims of my life with what 
they were one year, or five, or ten years ago, I am sensible 
that a marked change has taken place in me ; but it has 
been so gradual, and, amidst the influences by which I have 
been surrounded, I have been led so imperceptibly and al- 
most unconsciously to be more thoughtful, prayerful, and 
religiously dutiful, that really I cannot fix any time when 
the change occurred. And still another may say, I do not 
remember when I did not love God and pray to Him, or 
when the thought of Him was not precious to me, or when 
I was without the resolve to try to serve and enjoy Him. 
But such differences as to how or when are of no importance. 



CONVERSION. 117 

The vital question is, Is the man or woman pure, devout, 
religiously consecrated ? Is he or she like a little child, in 
the sense Christ intended, loving- God, loving the Saviour, 
and making it a constant thought and effort to be good and 
to do good in a religious spirit ? If so, then no matter 
about the how, the when, or the where. If one was never 
other than such a person, then conversion was not needed, 
— only persistence and growth, as one going right does 
not need to turn, only to press forward. If one has been 
different, and is now thoughtful, reverent, unselfish, godly, 
then this transition, whether sudden or gradual, — whether 
so. marked in the book of experience and memory that time 
and place can be exactly named, or otherwise, — is the con- 
version required. 

And this being, as we believe, the Bible doctrine of con- 
version, it is for this reason the doctrine on which, theoreti- 
cally, we insist — insist with great pertinacity whenever it is 
attacked, or we hear the necessity of 'a miraculous change 
of heart' asserted. But how is it with us practically? Are 
we, in our labors, systematically aiming at the conversion 
of the unawakened, as really the thing of primary and com- 
manding importance we theoretically allege it to be ? Are 
we anxiously training our children, in our homes and 
Sunday-schools, and directing- and toning our own lives, 
and doing all we do with eager and engrossing concern 
towards this end, counting all other success as no success 
except as this is realized ? Of not a few, these inquiries 
can be answered in the affirmative ; but can they be so an- 
swered to any such extent as the conditions of our spiritual 
vitality and power as a Church undeniably require ? Who 
will venture to say that they can be ? And if they cannot 
be, conceding that there is any reality in what the New 
Testament teaches on this point, and what we, theoretically, 
so contend for as the truth, is it not entitled to a larger and 
more prominent place in our thought and life, and are we 
not summoned, in a more urgent and personal administration 
of the Gospel call, "Repent ye, therefore, and turn" to God, 
to make a New Departure in this regard ? What but this, 
in fact, should be the end of our labors ? 

Is there any doubt what was the end for which Christ and 



118 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

the Apostles labored ? Go to the New Testament, and see. 
Constantly, under one name or another — - sometimes as 
Repentance, sometimes as Conversion, sometimes as the 
New Birth, or the birth from above, sometimes as simple 
Quickening, — this generic idea of spiritual awakening and 
return to God was the burden of our Lord's teachings ; and 
as invariably his one word was, Only through this is there, 
or can there be, for any soul, anywhere, entrance into my 
kingdom. So with the Apostles. Wherever they went, 
"testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks repent- 
ance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ/ 7 
their incessant message was, whatever other message they 
might bear, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in 
the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins ;" "Re- 
pent and be converted [turn, convert yourselves], that your 
sins may be blotted out." And, seeing thus what their 
ministry was, can we for a moment question what it would 
be, were they bodily on the earth to-day ? The state of 
things to which they then addressed themselves was, in 
substance, not at all exceptional. Special circumstances 
and exposures were different ; but; essential facts and needs 
were the same as now. Just as much now as then, men are 
wandering from God, perishing in their absence from Him. 
Now, as then, spiritual things are forgotten, and flesh is 
absorbing soul. Sin is no whit less a curse now than it 
was then ; error is no less a calamity ; worldliness is no 
less a mistake and a wrong ; souls are no less in peril. In 
no respect, on no account, did men then need to be aroused, 
stimulated, converted, more than this very hour. The same 
interests are at stake ; the same motives appeal ; the same 
necessities press ; and as I take my New Testament, and 
follow our Lord and his chosen ones in their work, and then 
think of them as preaching among us to-day, I hear their 
voices ringing out the same rebuking, pleading, awakening 
message as of old. No doubt they would expose error. 
No doubt they would frame arguments, and set forth doc- 
trine. No doubt they would carefully adjust themselves to 
existing conditions, intellectual and social, and appropriate 
for their purpose all that science discloses, all that philan- 
thropy has achieved, all that our improved civilization sug- 



CONVERSION. 119 

gests. But underneath and above all, their one most im- 
portunate word everywhere would be, souls immortal ! 
harassed, misguided, wandering ones ! awake from your 
mammon-worship, your selfishness, your love of pleasure ; 
awake from your engrossment in this world, your dull 
content amidst your social and political corruption, your 
sin ; repent, turn, and give yourselves to God. How else 
could they do their work of spiritual quickening and regen- 
eration ? And if this would be their method of labor, and 
we, having their Gospel, have succeeded to their work, is it 
for us to content ourselves with mere criticisms and argu- 
ments, with moral homilies and pretty essays, with textual 
explanations and doctrinal enforcements, however able or 
eloquent ? Are we in the line of duty if we do not take 
up the message that would so certainly be theirs, and make 
it with equal emphasis ours ? How else are we to prove 
ourselves Christ's followers, or to fulfil at all the ends for 
which he came, or the errand with which, in his behalf, we 
are charged ? 

For the sake of others, we need to make this New De- 
parture. The spiritual interests of all Christendom are 
seriously suffering for the theory of conversion which we 
represent, duly put to use. The disastrous results of the tra- 
ditional docf cine can scarcely be exaggerated. Let lis gladly 
admit all that can justly be said in its favor. Admit the 
high character and spiritual earnestness of many of those 
who think themselves examples of the supernatural renewal, 
the necessity of which it affirms. Admit that by means of 
revivals and excitements, engineered on the assumption of 
periodical visitations by the Holy Spirit to work this re- 
newal, considerable numbers are, from time to time, reli- 
giously awakened, so that the churches of the several ' evan- 
gelical ' sects, thus recruited, are, as the rule, much larger 
than ours, or any others organized on a like basis. But all 
this, alas ! is only one side — and a very small side — of 
the case. It is as nothing compared with the record for 
evil which the received theory has made, and is making, 
against itself. 

Think of the mischievous effect of the reliance on revi- 
vals and special occasions thus encouraged, as illustrated in 



120 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

the statement of Catharine Beecher, "that when revivals 
came, it was [thought] best to read the Bible, and pray, 
and go to meeting, but that, at other times, it was [held to 
be] of little use. 77 

Think of those naturally devout and thoughtful, anxious 
to ' be converted, 7 but hopelessly perplexed, baffled, thrown 
back upon themselves, confounded and disheartened in all 
their religious endeavors. So, Miss Beecher tells us, it 
was with her. Desiring nothing so much as ' to become a 
Christian, 7 and yet assured that it was her ' obstinate un- 
willingness to do what was required 7 that stood in the way, 
she at length, in her fruitless wrestlings and agony, reacted 
into \ an outburst of indignation and abhorrence, 7 disgusted 
with God and everything pertaining to religion, as she had 
been taught concerning them. And she only represents an 
innumerable company of others. An intelligent friend, 
reared in 'orthodoxy, 7 said to me not long since, None 
but one educated in these ideas can begin to understand the 
confusion and wretchedness they occasion those at all sensi- 
tive and religiously disposed. Those who care nothing 
about religion get along well enough. But the more ear- 
nest and thoughtful people are, the more confounded and 
distressed they are likely to be, as, praying and struggling 
for the ' change of heart 7 supposed to be necessary, they 
fail to obtain it, and wonder why. It was so in my case, 
she continued. I was scarcely more than eleven years of 
age when I became deeply exercised in respect to conver- 
sion. I was told that God alone could give me ' a new 
heart, 7 and, at the same time, that I must obtain it myself. 
So I prayed, and read, and agonized. I besought God to 
give me what I needed, and, if in anything I had failed to 
do my part, to show me what was required, and to help me 
do it. Still conversion did not come. At length, wea- 
ried and tortured, I became utterly discouraged, not know- 
ing what I could further do, until finally I settled into a 
torpid and desperate state, in which the very mention of 
religion became offensive to me. I could not bear to be in 
any way even approached on the subject ; and a dear old 
friend, my Sabbath-school superintendent, who used to call 
to talk with me, grew on this account to be so absolutely 



CONVERSION. 121 

disagreeable, that it painfully excited me to see him coming 
towards the house. This was my condition for years — ■ 
years the anguish and darkness of which I shall never for- 
get. And I am but one of many such sufferers. Vast 
numbers have thus had their hearts wrung and their lives 
shadowed, while others have been driven into defiance or 
despair. 

And then, still further, showing quite another work of 
evil, think of the multitudes trained in this common doc- 
trine of conversion, some of whom are more or less identi- 
fied with Christian congregations, but most of whom are 
outside all religious associations, in whom, so far as such a 
result is possible, it has destroyed all sense of personal re- 
sponsibility touching a religious life. Teaching that man is 
impotent for his own conversion, and that the whole work 
is God's, to move when, where and in whom He pleases, it 
has infected the entire popular mind — including many who 
in terms reject it — with the idea that those who are to be- 
come Christians are somehow, at some time, to be arrested 
and wrought upon by God's omnipotent Spirit, and thus at 
once, without agency of theirs, transformed into regenerate 
souls. Naturally, so taught, the great mass, whether inside 
or outside the circle of religious influence, are stolidly in- 
different to all religious appeals, feeling that, when God 
pleases to make them good, they will become so, and that, 
in the mean time, the domain of religion is altogether a for- 
eign country to them. How else should they feel, the 
theory in which they have been educated being true ? It 
is only surprising that such teaching has not been more uni- 
versally disastrous, and that the religious instinct and the 
sense of religious responsibility have been strong enough to 
assert themselves in spite of it even to the extent they have. 
For when people have been drilled into the belief that any 
effective purpose towards a holy life is possible only as God 
miraculously creates or imparts it, what is there for them, 
acting at all on the lesson, except to renounce all concern 
about such a life, and to feel that there is nothing for them 
to do but to devote themselves to this world as inclination 
may prompt, until God shall be pleased to take them in 
hand ? Catharine Beecher, from whom I have already twice 



122 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

quoted, and whose competency as a witness no one will dis- 
pute, giving her experience, testifies that this is the natural 
effect of the theory — to "lead to an entire neglect of 
all religious concerns." Is it too much to say, indeed, that 
this idea, directly or indirectly, lies at the bottom of nearly 
all the religious procrastination and unconcern which occa- 
sion us so much regret ? In the words of a good man now 
departed, " The two notions of the Innate Corruption of Hu- 
man Nature and of Miraculous Conversion are actually con- 
suming the religious life — of New England/' he said ; A but 
with broader truth, we may say, of the whole Christian 
world : " i. e., they are filling our families and houses of wor- 
ship, our towns and cities, with those who think that they 
have no interest in religion, or the church, except in the 
contingency" of this supernatural 'change of heart/ and 
who, in consequence, are postponing all religious thought 
or action on the supposition that, by and by, religion will 
come to them, and God's work of grace be instantaneously 
done within them. 

And yet once more, reflect on the spectacle presented on 
almost every gallows as murderers and criminals, hardened 
in their lives of sin, and without the remotest conception of 
the real work of religion in the heart, boastfully tell of the 
change which has come to them, and protest their assurance 
that they are to swing at once into glory ! Such spectacles 
are an offence and a disgust to all thoughtful people, and 
burlesquing the sacred name of religion, are serving, as of- 
ten as they occur, to bring it into contempt as a thing only 
of talk and shallow cant. But every such spectacle is the 
legitimate product of the common doctrine of conversion ; 
and multitudes of the depraved and abandoned, so far as they 
ever think of God or the future, are expecting, on the au- 
thority of this doctrine, to get into heaven through just such 
an instantaneous change, which, as they imagine, will wipe 
out all their sins, unpunished, transform them into blood- 
washed saints, and put them safely at God's right hand. 

These, then, being some of the deplorable results of the 
current theory, are we not, for the sake of all the interests 
thus affected for evil, urgently called to make our doctrine 
of conversion more vitally a power for the ends it is de- 



CONVERSION. 123 

signed to serve ? There is nothing" else that can supplant 
the common doctrine and correct its false impressions ; and 
except as this is supplanted, it will go on begetting the 
same ruinous misconceptions, filling our communities with 
the same chronic irreligiousness, expecting God to make it 
religious, and sowing the same seed-tares that, these many 
generations, have borne such melancholy fruit, in lives know- 
ing so little of God, and Christ, and spiritual sensibility, and 
so invincibly wedded to indifference and the world. The 
only remedy for the evils of error is the truth. 

But we need, also and especially, to take this New Depart- 
ure for our own sake — that we may fitly express and duly 
honor the faith we profess, and make our Church the living 
instrument of awakening and saving men which, as a Church 
of Christ, it ought to be. What, finally, does this Church of 
ours stand for ? Immediately, it stands for many things : — 
for warfare against error, and for the exposition and defence 
of the truth ; for God's Fatherhood ; for man's brotherhood ; 
for God's instant and constant moral rule in the life of souls 
and the life of the race ; for the unescapable retributions of 
sin ; and, sublime climax of all, for the everlasting unity of 
our race, and for Christ's certain ultimate triumph in bring- 
ing all souls home to God. Valiant and effective service, 
as has been said in preceding pages, has our Church done, 
standing for these things in the past ; and not one of them 
is a thing to be overlooked or forgotten. Any New Depart- 
ure that should propose to ignore or forget them, or any 
one of them, would be a departure for evil and not for good 

— a sacrifice of principle and a waste of power. But why 
does our Church stand for these things ? For no mere pur- 
pose of theory or argument, of attack or defence, surely ; 
but only because they are so many means for something be- 
yond. Our Church, if indeed it be a Church of Christ, as we 
insist, stands finally for just what the Bible stands for ; for 
just what the cross of Christ stands for ; for just what God's 
loving and holy spirit is always pleading and striving for : 

— for the awakening of the indifferent ; for the conversion 
of the sinful ; for the salvation of the perishing ; to put the 
light of a Divine life into dull and earth-bound eyes ; and for 
anything else only as helps to these ends. And standing for 



124 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

these ends, everything in our condition and in the condition 
of the church and the world is conspiring to summon us to 
give them the prominence they deserve. We have been 
doing one great work — that of doctrinally enlightening and 
leavening the church and the world. God is now calling us 
to another and greater — that of spiritually quickening souls, 
that the tides of a Diviner life may flow into them. 

As was intimated at the close of our first chapter, the one 
imperious demand of this time — as, indeed, it has been of 
all former times, is religious sensibility ; a profounder con- 
sciousness of God ; spiritual arrest and guidance. The lo- 
comotive, shaking our towns and cities beneath the thunder 
of its wheels, and finding no wilderness too dense or inac- 
cessible to be pierced with the shrill scream of its whistle, 
fitly symbolizes the material enterprise that is mastering the 
globe, making or stealing money, and pushing everywhere 
for ' more.' But the locomotive is only force, and without 
the controlling presence of mind, rushes to certain ruin. 
And so all these things that so signalize our time — our 
science, so bold and inquisitive, and much of it so godless, 

— our inventions, so fruitful, — our literature, so copious, 

— our trading, so eager, — our industries, so manifold, and 
some of them so titanic, — our material energy so many- 
sided, so restless, so unconquerable, are but so many expres- 
sions of another kind of force, which quite as much needs 
the controlling presence of religion, and can only result in 
moral collapse and decay without it. It is the sad but sig- 
nificant warning of history, that the periods most marked 
by the triumphs of art and intellect have been among the 
periods of most terrible social wreck and national overthrow. 
The question of engrossing concern to-day is, Is this period 
to repeat the warning ? Great reason have we to be thank- 
ful for its intellectual reach and conquests, and for its ma- 
terial scope and vigor. But yonder, so sure as God's 
throne stands, is the vortex into which we are to plunge if 
these be not possessed and sanctified. Science, behind all 
law, must see something more than law, and kneel. Busi- 
ness must be conscious of interests more real and enduring. 
Politics must be made clean. Industry must toil in reverent 
dependence on an unseen Hand. Literature must make 



CONVERSION. 125 

itself a minister to something deeper than taste or mere 
knowledge. All material energy must confess a spiritual 
control. In a word, God must be the central fact in life, or 
disaster and death will ensue. And the work of our 
Church, freighted with truths so broad, so rational, so satis- 
fying alike to the intellect and the heart, is to put the 
thought of God as a living power, as no other Church can, 
into the life of this eager, restless, world-ridden time — so 
drifting away from the old faiths, and so needing anchorage 
and inspiration in what is better. But this, in its very nature, 
is. a work of religious awakening and impulse, and can be 
done only as, making ourselves everywhere an incarnate call 
to repentance and consecration, we emphasize what Christ 
means by conversion as the sole gateway to the highest 
order of character, and seek to make every finger we point 
heavenward a conductor to bring down among us the elec- 
tric life of God. We do nothing, we can do nothing to- 
wards the most vital administration of the Gospel, or to- 
wards answering the deepest needs of souls or the hour, 
except as we thus labor. " One of the things/' said Ward 
Beecher, not long ago, in his second series of Lectures on 
Preaching, " that measure the power of the pulpit is the 
magnitude of living power it develops among the people." 
And for like reasons, the thing which finally determines the 
worth of a church to the world is the measure of spiritual 
power it puts into it. For this reason, conversion, as the 
New Testament enforces it, being the key to the whole 
process of Christian experience, — the cardinal fact in the 
Christian life, our usefulness depends finally upon our ear- 
nestness and fidelity at just this point, and the use we make 
of whatever else we believe or preach with reference to this 
end. 

In the prominence they give to the necessity of conver- 
sion, notwithstanding they are so seriously mistaken in their 
conception of its nature, is one of the explanations of what- 
ever religious effectiveness our brethren of other churches 
have. Their errors concerning it are the occasions of wide- 
spread harm, as we have seen ; but we cannot deny that, de- 
spite their errors, they are doing something to arouse and 
religiously impress souls : and for whatever genuine Chris- 



126 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

tian work they are doing", let us thank God. Have we not 
much to learn from them in this particular ? Our theory of 
conversion is different from theirs ; but no whit should we 
be behind them, on this account, in the constancy and ear- 
nestness with which we urge the thing itself. We should 
rather exceed them in these things : for who see in sin, in 
spiritual deadness and unconcern, in absence from God and 
unconsciousness of Him, things in themselves so terrible as 
we ? Even so distinguished an expositor of ' orthodoxy ' as 
Dr. Enoch Pond, in a late paper on the growing ' evangelical ' 
" disposition to fraternize with Universalists," protests against 
it for the reason, that if the idea is relinquished that men are 
" all under sentence of eternal death and exposed to suffer 
forever for their sins," "the exigency which demanded the 
interposition and death of the Son of God" is "quite re- 
moved," and " no man can see why Christ should have 
died " ! And this but illustrates the chronic blindness and 
insensibility of our ' evangelical ; brethren to the intrinsic 
curse of sin. It is not sin, but the punishment of sin that 
seems to them the terrible thing, furnishing, as Dr. Pond 
avers, the sole reason why all heaven should be moved for 
human redemption. We see the terrible thing in sin itself, 
and are thus furnished with corresponding reason to plead 
with men to repent of and abandon it. And as to the means 
whereby souls are to be reached, awakened and turned to 
God, who, if we will but use them, have motives so potent, 
or can begin to do so much as we ? 

What we most want is reality and intensity of faith in the 
theories we talk, and the zeal born of such a faith. " You 
Universalists," said a Baptist minister at one of our General 
Convention Conference Meetings,* " have the grandest ideas ; 
and if you were only true to them, you would sweep the 
world." And this is what we are here for — spiritually 
to master and possess the world. Do we actually believe in 
conversion as a requirement of the Gospel, or as a necessity 
for souls ? If so, it is for us to show it by methods of labor, 
and an ardor, and an amount of results corresponding. " Hast 
thou faith?" said the Apostle, to the Romans; "have 

* At Providence, R. J., 1858. 



CONVERSION. 127 

it to thyself before God. Happy is he that condemneth 
not himself in that thing which he allowetb." And these 
are God's words to us as a Church, to-day. Our period of 
simple preparation is over. Our period for fruitage is here. 
Mere talk about conversion, and the glorious things that 
are to come of Christ's saving work through it, will no longer 
do. We must give evidence of the thing itself, and show 
ourselves practically in earnest to induce and promote it. 
The right kind of talk has its use, and argument, if really 
argument, seldom fails to make itself duly felt ; but Christ 
was' not born to modify opinions simply, nor merely to 
leaven the world with larger and freer thought, or with 
broader conceptions of God, or clearer conceptions of im- 
mortality. He was born to regenerate souls and change life ; 
born ' that he might bear witness to the truth,' indeed, but 
only that those believing the truth might be sanctified 
through it ; and if his kingdom is ever to triumph, it must 
triumph, not through doctrinal assent, or any amount of 
theoretical assertion, however strenuously or ably argued, 
but through the aggregation and earnest effort of souls con- 
verted to God, and quickened to newness of life in His ser- 
vice. On no other terms can we, to deepest or widest effect, 
compel the world's attention, command its respect, or make 
ourselves felt as a recreative spiritual force in it. 

God be thanked for all that tells of the progress we have 
made — for the literature we have created ; for the schools 
and colleges we have founded ; for the splendid church edi- 
fices that are. bearing our name ; for every sign of our 
growth in numbers, wealth, and material strength ; and 
God be thanked even more for all that is indicating what we 
have been as a leavening influence among the creeds, and 
in the thought of the country and the world. All these 
have their importance. But sinful souls awakened, the 
thoughtless becoming thoughtful and penitent, the prayer- 
less becoming prayerful, the worldly and unbelieving moved 
to cry, " What must I do to be saved ? " and setting 
themselves to do what is required — these are more than 
books, or schools, or beautiful or costly temples, — more 
even than changed opinions, or broader and better concep- 
tions of religious truth, as signs of the true life, and as 



128 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

means of Church-power. Other things are helps, steps to- 
wards the ends desired; — these are necessities, the ends 
themselves, without which no church can long fail to die 
out, or to be cut down, as the Lord of the vineyard asks, 
"Why cumbereth it the ground ? " 

On every principle of highest moral influence, and by vir- 
tue of every motive than can most affect hearts, we should 
be the people most electric with spiritual life, and the Church 
most effective in awakening and turning souls to God. Are 
we so in fact ? Alas, can we say, Yes ? How few, of us, 
comparatively, are glowing with religious fervor, under 
the kindling baptism of the Holy Ghost ! How many, fail- 
ing to appreciate Universalism, are as yet content to be only 
servants and strangers, in the outer courts of the temple, 
instead of pressing on as sons and daughters into the inner- 
most household of God ! 

Is it said that the proportion of such among us, all things 
considered, is not greater than among our ' evangelical ; 
neighbors ? Perhaps it is not ; but this avails nothing for 
our excuse. There is no ground for comparison in this re- 
spect between us and them. Their theory of conversion, 
as we have seen, tends logically and necessarily to religious 
delay and unconcern, and every soul among them, awakened 
and striving towards the religious life, is so in spite of the 
hinderances and discouragements it interposes. Our theory, 
no less recognizing our dependence upon God and the agency 
of the Holy Spirit, tells us that it is for us, under God, 
to turn to Him, and, summoning us to the action required, 
presses us with the fact that, so long as we remain una- 
wakened, we are ourselves at fault. How, then, can those 
professing to believe Universalism justify themselves to their 
own consciences in an unawakened, or non-religious life ? 
Or, since in this same view we are shown how much the 
work of human conversion and amendment depends upon 
our efforts to promote it, how can they feel otherwise than 
constantly self-condemned if they fail to be earnest and ac- 
tive in their endeavors, according to their ability and op- 
portunity, not only to convince those about them of the 
truth, but to awaken them to a sense of duty and to lead 
them to God ? Alas ! for the errors, misconceptions and 



CONVERSION. 129 

half-beliefs which prevent so many from seeing and feeling 
the meaning of our truth, and which thus make them, in- 
stead of the earnest workers for themselves and others they 
ought to be, cold, inactive, without enthusiasm, caring noth- 
ing for harmony and intimacy with God and the Saviour for 
themselves, and caring as little for the conversion and hap- 
piness of others. How much such lose for themselves ! 
How much our Church loses because of them ! 

0, for a just insight by Universalists into the meaning of 
Universalism as the Gospel of the world's quickening and 
redemption, and simple consistency with it ! If we could 
but have these, what an awakening we should see ! What 
a melting of hearts ! What renunciations of indifference I 
What a bending of knees ! What a clothing of lives in the 
beauty of new and higher purposes ! What demonstra- 
tions of the spirit ! What resolves and struggles towards 
personal holiness ! What earnestness for the enlightenment 
and salvation of others ! And as the result, how our minis- 
ters would all burn with Apostolic zeal and fervor, as some 
are burning ! How our parishes would be increased and 
vivified ! How our whole Church would be pervaded with 
the life of Christ, and become, beyond all precedents, a 
power to arouse and animate souls towards goodness, in his 
discipleship ! Why cannot we have these things, the re- 
sults of a becoming thoughtfulness, insuring the New De- 
parture to which in this respect we are called, and so mak- 
ing us mighty for the conversion of sinners and the widen- 
ing Christianization of the world ? 
9 



CHAPTER IX. 

EXPERIMENTAL RELIGION. 

Our second chapter dealt at length with the lack of dis- 
tinctively religious results which we have to confess as we 
sum up the work of our First Century, and with the ques- 
tion of its causes. In the enumeration of these causes, one 
was left for separate mention here. It is, that our generally 
accepted theory of Religion has not recognized the neces- 
sity, or even the importance, of the experimental type of it. 
Not that, as a people, we have ever lacked either faith in 
religion, or respect for it — as we have understood it. 
Any statement that we have lacked either of these things, 
by whomsoever made, would grossly misrepresent us. But 
while we have not lacked in these respects, and have never 
been without those who have insisted as strenuously as any 
others on the necessity of Experimental Religion, the con- 
ception of religion which has most prevailed, and which, 
though not so widely as in former years, is still prevalent 
among us, is that it is a good conscience towards man, rather 
than a pious heart towards God. A one-sided, because too 
literal, interpretation has been put on James' words, "Pure 
religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, 
To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to 
keep himself unspotted from the world." 

Nor is this state of things surprising in view of all the 
facts. The several explanations set forth in Chapter II., all 
have their place in accounting for it. And still another, of 
much weight, must here be added. Protesting against Ca- 
tholicism and Episcopacy, and reacting from them and 
their abuses, the Puritans renounced many things which are 
now seen to have been not only desirable, but, in a sense, 
essential. The result was a most austere religious life and 
a singularly barren worship, fitly symbolized in the bleak 
and rocky coast and the inhospitable soil to which the Plym- 

130 






EXPERIMENTAL RELIGION. 131 

outh pilgrims came. In much the same way, our concep- 
tion of religion was determined. As recently even as the 
year of grace, 1865, a committee of the " National Congre- 
gational Council," headed by no less a man than Rev. Dr. 
Shepard, of the Bangor Theological School, pronounced it 
a " fallacy " to suppose " that converting men, making them 
Christians, of course makes them honest and benevolent " ! 
But when our movement began, this divorce between re- 
ligion and character was not only much more pronounced, 
but was almost universally regarded as, beyond question, 
the right view of the subject. Religion was supposed, as 
religion, to consist wholly in this — that one had ' made his 
peace with God ' in ' a change of heart/ and had become 
scrupulous in prayers and church-going, and earnest in zeal 
for the salvation of his own soul and of other souls from 
hell. Morality, character, was thought to be quite another 
thing. An unimpeachable life, full of all social kindness 
and charities, was depreciated as but ' filthy rags ' ; and it 
by no means followed, because a man was conspicuously 
' pious/ that he was honest, benevolent or trustworthy. 
Naturally, then, protesting so vigorously against the theo- 
logical errors they assailed, and disgusted with a pietism so 
hollow that, whatever might be its meaning towards God, it 
could, in no single particular, be accepted as a pledge of any 
good or right thing towards man, our pioneers swung into 
the other extreme. Specially emphasizing, in their rebound, 
the long ignored duties to man as cardinal requirements with- 
out which there could be no religion worth the name, they 
failed duly to consider the other side. As the consequence, 
the phrases ' experiencing religion ' and ' experimental re- 
ligion/ fell into discredit and disuse among us. They and 
the idea they represent became distasteful to great numbers 
of our best people, because, it was thought, always carrying 
with them an odor of cant, and suggesting only an offensive 
pretentiousness and a pharisaic assumption, which, talking 
about God and praying much, had occasion to sit at the feet 
of the worst open-handed and upright ' sinner/ to learn the 
alphabet of a real fidelity to moral and social obligation. 
It was overlooked that the spirit of James' definition neces- 
sarily implies a tender and habitual recognition of " God 



132 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

and the Father/' and thus a life lived always as ' before ' 
Him. Hence its mere letter became, to a large extent, our 
sole and constantly quoted catechism upon the subject. 
Not only was it insisted, as every right-minded person must 
insist, that religion means truth and honor and charity ; it 
was also insisted that one who is morally upright, kind to 
the poor and thoughtful of those in trouble, fulfils all duty, 
and is in the best sense religious, though what is called 
piety may fail to appear. 

But while it is easy to explain how such a style of think- 
ing came into vogue among us, the thinking itself is none 
the less to be regretted ; nor is what has resulted from it, 
or our need of a New Departure in respect to it, any less 
manifest. As between such an estimate of religion, indeed, 
and that which holds it a ' fallacy ' to think " that making 
men Christians of course makes them honest and benev- 
olent/' the former is infinitely to be preferred ; and while 
we have occasion deeply to mourn our lack religiously, we 
have no less occasion to rejoice that, morally, Universalists, 
as a class, have made for themselves a record confessedly so 
honorable as an upright and benevolent people. Better this 
than mere pietism without it — as the recently exposed im- 
probity and turpitude of so many in high places, who had 
been regarded as distinguished samples of * evangelical re- 
ligion/ has impressively taught us. Alas ! such revela- 
tions, in high or humble places, as they too often occur, do 
but show us what legitimately comes of that chronic separa- 
tion of religion and character, which Dr. Shepard's remark 
so signally illustrates. But both these estimates are incom- 
plete — one quite as much as the other ; and as our ' evan- 
gelical ' friends need to make — as some of them already 
have made — a new departure in respect to character as 
a part of religion, we need scarcely less a similar depart- 
ure in the other direction. It is possible to make no one 
Christian, they need to understand, without making him 
to the same extent honest. and benevolent, since piety, so 
far as it is genuine, necessarily includes morality ; and on 
the other hand, we need to understand, no morality is sound- 
est, or most real, which does not grow from religion as its 
tap-root. The true life comes only of the harmonious 
blending of the two. 



EXPERIMENTAL RELIGION. 133 

Very earnestly and decidedly, then, we should at once 
give ourselves to the New Departure thus indicated — not 
in thinking of any social charity or fidelity less, but of piety 
more. Moral faithfulness is indispensable. But nothing is 
farther from the truth than the idea, however or by whom- 
soever held, that we are religious enough when we are mor- 
ally faithful. It virtually ignores God. It fails to take a 
whole half of our nature into account. It overlooks not only 
our duty to God, but the indispensable office of a devout re- 
gard for Him, as an element in our experience and as a forma- 
tive force at the centre of our lives. Filial duty is by no 
means answered in simple kindness to brothers and sisters, 
and a scrupulous obedience to every parental command. 
It is answered only when the whole life is possessed and 
moulded by a filial love. As little is our duty all done, or 
our whole nature ministered to, in any mere moral fidelity, 
however exact, or any philanthropic service, however thought- 
ful. It is answered only as the whole being is pervaded 
with a sense of God, and -all life is made a loving ofTeriug 
to Him. 

Religion, having this meaning of piety, it needs far more 
.generally to be seen, is the necessity of every soul : — a 
necessity because our relations and obligations to God de- 
mand it, and not less because our own nature requires it. 
God is the Life of all life, and the law of all movement and 
being. All nature confesses Him, and therefore there is 
order among the circling worlds, and in the domain of 
matter everywhere. Imagine God out of the universe, or 
His will no longer recognized, and what would follow ? 
So, equally, God must be the central fact in the life of 
souls, or moral necessities will as certainly be broken, and 
moral confusion and death ensue. Hence our constitution, 
with religious instincts and what we call our religious na- 
ture — that we might be held to God as planets are held to 
their central suns, or the needle to the pole. Neither needle 
nor planet can wholly divest itself of this innate allegiance, 
but, however temporarily affected by counter attractions, 
always, in the end, confesses its original law. So with us 
in respect to God. Made to be religious, we can never 
wholly rid ourselves of this tendency, and are sure at some 



134 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

time to come back to the recognition of God, however we 
may have lapsed from it. Religion is the recognition of God ; 
the centripetal force of the spiritual universe, binding souls 
to Him ; the electric chain, linking us as offspring and Him 
as Source, through which alone can the vital current be 
communicated to us. Sever the flower's connection with 
its root, it withers. Cut off the stream from the fountain, 
it dries up. Detach the wire from the battery, it is power- 
less. As inevitably, sever the soul's conscious connection 
with its God, — let religion be wanting as the medium 
through which we shall be nurtured in Divine hopes, and 
be kept sensible of our dependence, and loving as well as 
loyal in our service, — and, in proportion as this is the case, 
though intellect and conscience survive, and the formal pro- 
cesses of life go on, the vigor and freshness of our being 
decay ; the healthfulness and harmonious action of our 
higher faculties fail ; spiritually, we die. There is no life 
away from God, and religion alone keeps us in contact with 
Him. 

Why but on this account does Christianity come to us as 
it does ? A philosophy of spiritual facts and laws, it is at 
the same time a perfect system of doctrine, and a perfect 
ethical code. But does it content itself with what it thus 
is ? Far otherwise. Recognizing in us needs and capaci- 
ties which crave something deeper than any intellectual 
solution of the universe, and something more interior and 
vital than any mould for our outward life, it comes to us a 
Religion, seeking not only to inform the understanding and 
instruct the conscience, but to take possession of every 
faculty, pervading it with the required sense of God, and 
so putting our whole being into time and tune with Him. 
Only as thus a religion, and on the basis of our religious 
nature, does it, finally, seek or expect to do anything for us. 
Of what avail would its effort be, if it did ? A genuine 
manhood or womanhood in Christ, rounding all our noblest 
possibilities into full expression, is the result it contemplates 
in respect to each one of us ; and how could this be accom- 
plished if the primary element of our spiritual nature, and 
what is most vital in our relations, had been left out in the 
process ? 



EXPERIMENTAL RELIGION. 135 

Our religious nature is the granitic base and material of 
character, and on it and out of it only can the highest order 
of manliness or womanliness be produced. Consider Christ. 
Had he incarnated simple intellect and bare loyalty to moral 
law, could his have been the perfect life which now so wins 
while it awes us ? Great intellects and correct lives have 
many times shone upon the world. The distinction of 
Christ is that his intellect was so invigored and vitalized by 
something higher, and deeper, and grander than intellect, 
and his character so pervaded by the very essence of good- 
ness, and his entire life so attuned into accord with Divine 
'harmonies, that he became in all things so complete as the 
Ideal Man as to be also the Image of God. And why ? 
Not only because his perceptions of God were so clear, but 
because his consciousness of Him was so complete ; because 
his trust in Him, and his communion with Him, and his 
union to Him, were so entire ; because his whole soul was 
so alive with Him, in the quickening of every religious fac- 
tor of his nature, and the perfect fruitage of every religious 
possibility. He might have known all he did, and might 
have been as externally blameless as he was ; but, lacking 
this consummate religiousness which was, at the same time, 
despite the apparent confusion of figures, the substratum, 
the essence and the aroma of his life, he could never have 
been what he was, nor have shed such a power into the 
world. And he but exemplifies the universal fact. Not 
only is religion no new invention, the religious needs and 
tendencies of men being coeval with human existence, but, 
in every period of the world, the most truly religious man, 
other things being equal, has been the largest, most philan- 
thropic, noblest man ; and all men have been good, happy, 
truly great, in exact proportion as they have approached 
the best standard of religious excellence. 

And the past in this particular only prophesies the future. 
There are those who are fond of talking of religion as a 
superstition, a sort of childishness and temporary weakness 
of mankind, which is, in due time, to be outgrown, as chil- 
dren outgrow their toys and primers. No doubt the. world 
has much to outgrow — how much, or what, no one can 
say ; and, as the consequence, many things now dear — 



136 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

usages, opinions, institutions — are doubtless to be cast 
aside. But, as was in substance said in speaking of Christ, 
whatever else may be cast aside, religion never will be. 
There can be no progress beyond the scope of its truths, — 
no condition of development in which it will have no further 
office. Opinions will change. Forms will perish. Inter- 
pretations will pass away. But man will never outgrow 
God. Religion there will always be — the necessity of 
souls ; the support and handmaid of the intellectual and 
moral elements of our being, whatever the progress possible 
to them. And in heaven, as on earth, human nature and its 
relations to God continuing the same, the most religious 
soul, living most in God, will stand in the van of the race, 
breathing most of that clearer atmosphere ; having the 
broadest outlook, as well as the deepest insight ; and exhib- 
iting the noblest specimen of ripened and sanctified human 
life. 

And, all this being true, what is the conclusion in respect 
to experimental religion to which it conducts us ? Clearly, 
if we are to be religious at all, not religion as a theology, 
nor as a moral service, but as an experience, — experimental 
religion, is that which alone meets the demands and condi- 
tions in the case. What is experimental religion ? No wise 
man should suffer himself to be prejudiced against the thing 
because the terms by which it is signified may have been 
abused. This abuse of the terms, indeed, admonishes us 
that we should distinctly understand what experimental re- 
ligion is not. It is not mere church-going, or talk about 
God and religion, we should bear in mind. It is not a pietis- 
tic diiettanteism, that affects religious pictures and forms ; 
and, quite as decidedly, it is not a mere effervescence of re- 
ligious sentiment or emotion, that loves devotional meet- 
ings, and runs over in pious phrases and professions, and is 
never so happy as in some convocation for prayer and reli- 
gious exhortation. One at all experimentally religious, it is 
true, will naturally love religious associations and exercises. 
But none of these things in themselves constitute experi- 
mental religion ; nor is a fondness for them by any means a 
sure sign of its presence. On the contrary, some of those 
whom I have known most addicted to them have been, of 



EXPERIMENTAL RELIGION. 137 

all the people I have met, among those farthest from pos- 
sessing any such religion, and from any just conception of 
it — because showing, in their meanness, selfishness, or dis- 
honesty, in their fractious or unamiable spirit, that religion 
was in no positive sense a fact in their lives. 

Experimental religion is religion experienced and appropri- 
ated as a possessing and governing power. Experimental 
honesty, democracy, benevolence, is honesty, democracy, 
benevolence not simply talked and believed in, but under- 
stood, felt, put into action. In like manner, experimental re- 
ligion is real religion — religion felt, applied, permeating the 
soul, to thrill, quicken and control it. It is the working of 
God's Holy Spirit of Truth within us, vitalizing and fructify- 
ing us — as, if the earth were conscious, spring, summer, au- 
tumn, would in turn be its experimental attestation that it 
had felt itself warmed, watered, and supplied with all the 
quickening* and fertilizing agencies appointed to stir and 
make it fruitful. It is the life of God in the soul : — what 
our Lord enjoined when he said, "If any man will do His 
will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, 
or whether I speak of myself. . . . He that hath my com- 
mandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me ; and 
he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will 
love him, and will manifest myself to him, . . . and my 
Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make 
our abode with him. . . . Abide in me, and I in you. . . . 
He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth 
much fruit" (John vii. 17; xiv. 21, 23; xv. 4, 5); — 
what Paul had in his thought when he said, "because the 
love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, 
which is given unto us ... I bow my knees unto the 
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, . . . that he would grant 
you according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened 
with might by His spirit in the inner man ; that Christ may 
dwell in your hearts by faith ; that ye, being rooted and 
grounded in love, may be able to 'comprehend with all 
saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and 
height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth 
knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of 
God" (Rom. v. 5; Eph. iii. 14, 16-19); — what Peter 



138 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

meant when he said, "whom, having not seen, ye love; in 
whom, though now ye see him not, yet, believing, ye rejoice 
with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the end of 
your faith, the salvation of your souls " (1 Pet. i. 8, 9) ; — 
and what John was thinking of when he said, " This is the 
love of God, that we keep His commandments. . . . For 
whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world ; and this 
is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith " 
(1 John v. 3, 4). 

It is one of the chief misfortunes of the world, and es- 
pecially of the church, that so much of its religion is non- 
experimental — alas ! much of it that broadens its phylac- 
teries, and prays loudly, and thinks itself experimental. 
Eeading MorelPs "Philosophy of Religion," years ago, I 
was struck with a statement to this effect : " We pity the 
deluded people who substitute the superstitious reverence 
of saints, relics and images for the veneration and heartfelt 
worship of God. How few reflect that, within our own 
communities, there are multitudes, claiming to be much 
more intelligent, who are practising a substitution equally 
fatal to all that is most elevated in the Christian life — the 
substitution of terms, phrases, propositions, beliefs, for the 
vital power of the religion of Christ." It is sad to think 
how large the number is who make this substitution, and 
how all the interests that would be furthered by a more liv- 
ing and experimental Christianity are suffering in conse- 
quence. 

Two things are to be particularly noted as thus re- 
sulting. 

In the first place, to the extent that it is made, this sub- 
stitution gives a thin, poor, halting faith, instead of the 
assurance to which the Christian believer is called. This 
assurance is one that knows nothing of doubt — that takes 
hold of Christianity as a fact, and of God, and Christ, and 
redemption, and immortality, as realities, with a confidence 
as implicit as that with which we take hold of any fact in 
the unquestionable order of nature. But such a faith never 
comes of mere argument. 

It is well — on some accounts, very important — that we 
should thoroughly understand the various proofs of Chris- 



EXPERIMENTAL RELIGION. 139 

tianity. historical and moral, external and internal, that we 
may thus see how it is established and fortified at every pos- 
sible point, and so be prepared to answer the objections of 
unbelief, and the questions of honest inquiry. But these, 
after all, avail little towards the moral certitude which 
makes a conviction of the truth of Christianity as absolute 
as the conviction of one's own existence. Most people 
take Christianity on trust. Their faith in it is the result 
simply of education or tradition, and, in the nature of the 
case, if this is all, cannot, when sharply assailed, be very 
strong. And the faith that is better founded and more in- 
telligent, but that is only historical, critical, intellectual, 
however sure, is never so quite sure as to be certain beyond 
all peradventure. The result of what is called a compari- 
son of evidence, — that is, of a balance of probabilities, 
with the balance more or less decidedly in favor of Chris- 
tianity, it is always liable to gusts of questioning and 
flaws of doubt, as one sailing on some lakes is constantly 
exposed to squalls, and, if a wise man, always sails with 
one hand on his rudder, and the other on his ' sheet/ feel- 
ing perhaps not insecure, but, all the time, that some unex- 
pected gust may strike him, and, if he is not duly on his 
guard, upset his boat, and tumble him into the water. For 
the faith which, whether one accepts Christianity by educa- 
tion, or only after careful inquiry into its proofs, is most 
confident, putting one entirely at rest, as one sails some 
placid sea, where no flaws or gusts ever come, and where, 
before the steady-blowing of some favoring breeze, he ad- 
justs his rudder and fastens his sail, and, in a sense of 
entire security, has no thought except of the calm delight 
of the hour, and of the place where, by and by, he is to 
land, one must have the demonstration of experience. 

Because of what is thus true, there is perpetual signifi- 
cance in the familiar story of the unlettered man who, being 
asked by a self-confident sceptic where he found his evi- 
dence of Christianity, laid his hand on his heart, saying, 
Here. Only of this evidence does the highest assurance 
come. As the consequence, the more entirely Christian 
one is, — i.e. the more one has ' Christ in him, the hope of 
glory,' the instructor of his ignorance, his comfort in sor- 



140- 



OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 



row, his help in every need, the less, so far as he is per- 
sonally concerned, will be his interest in the ordinary ele- 
ments of proof, and the more inconsiderable will seem to 
him their value. Desiring to know whether there really are 
such places as Niagara and the Yosemite, I do well to col- 
late evidence and study descriptions ; but what need have 
I of these things if I am there? How was it with the 
healed blind man of whom John (ix. 10-33) tells us ? 
Pestered by his cross-examiners with questions which he 
could not readily answer, this was his sufficient rejoinder, 
" Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not : one thing I 
know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see." What if there 
were questions which he could not answer ? This was the 
impregnable demonstration that Christ was verily from God. 

It is as we " taste and see that the Lord is good," that 
we know Him to be so, and find it blessed to trust in Him ; 
and whatever may be our acquaintance with other argu- 
ments or evidence, it is only as we have experience of Chris- 
tianity, and find ourselves illumined, vitalized, saved by it, 
that we attain to the certitude which says, I know it is of 
God. As Dr. Chapin has somewhere remarked, " The more 
we get into the very spirit of Christ, and participate in his 
life and joy, the more we see that he was and must have been 
from God ; and the more we test the capacity of his religion 
for our wants and trials, and find it what we need, the deeper 
will be our assurance that it is from Him who made us what 
we are. ,; We thus have the witness within ourselves ; and 
any other is and can be only akin to that ^hich a blind man 
has of the beauty of a landscape, or of the splendors of the 
setting sun, or such as one may have concerning the gran- 
deur of the mountains, or the ruins of Thebes, who has only 
read about, and has never had his soul thrilled among 
them. 

But the great consideration pertaining to this subject is 
that only an Experimental Religion at all positively answers 
any religious purpose, or can effectually do the work of sav- 
ing souls. Any faith in Christianity is, in a sense, some- 
thing gained — as, if people were suffering on account of 
a morbid abstinence, something would be gained in getting 
them to believe in food, and water, and fresh air. But what 



EXPERIMENTAL RELIGION. 141 

would mere belief avail towards sustaining life ? As little 
does any mere belief in Christianity avail for the ends it 
contemplates. It prepares the way for something better 
than belief. But, in itself, such a mere opinion is worth 
little more than any other opinion. Heart as well as head 
must be affected, if Christianity is positively to accomplish 
anything. "It's a wonder to me," once said a perplexed 
and inquiring friend, as we were talking of Christ, "if 
Christianity is really from God, that it does not take deeper 
hold of men, and more generally control them. Why doesn't 
it ? " The same question has doubtless occurred to many 
others, and to answer it thoroughly, numerous causes would 
have to be taken into account. But here we have the main 
and most inclusive answer : — Because such vast multitudes 
are content to believe with the head, and not with the heart. 
Because so great a proportion of those nominally ranged 
under the Christian banner are Christians only in a nominal 
assent, — in a merely historical or traditional faith, — in 
talk about Christianity, instead of being Christians in a 
faith that pervades and possesses the whole being, transform- 
ing Christianity from theory into fact, and so bringing souls 
into a living union with the Saviour, and filling them with 
the fulness of God. Appropriation, application, insight, ex- 
perience are wanting. In other words, Religion is only on 
the surface of the mind, as an opinion. It fails to go into 
its depths, among the springs of life, as a principle and a 
power. Shall we wonder that, under these circumstances, 
Christianity does not more widely conform life to itself? 
The wonder is that it has accomplished and is accomplishing 
so much. It is as if the rain, and sunshine, and all fer- 
tilizing agencies could barely touch the face of the soil, — 
never infiltrate and pervade its substance. How much, were 
this so, would they do to cover garden and field with the 
verdure of the spring-time, or to crown the autumn with 
harvests ? 

The chapter on Christ Essential glanced at the condition 
of things before Christ's advent. And why were things so ? 
Not because the world had no truth. It had a great deal 
of truth ; in some form had not a little of that which Chris- 
tianity more perfectly embodied, — enough, certainly, if it 



142 OUK NEW DEPARTURE. 

had been effective, to have made life very different from 
what it was. But it was ineffective. Why ? Because its 
moral force failed to be seen and felt ; because men specu- 
lated and believed concerning God and Duty, just as they 
did about problems in geometry, or rules in mathematics, 
touched no more spiritually by a Divine thought than by the 
multiplication-table ; because, therefore, consciences were 
not quickened, nor hearts pricked or melted ; in a single 
word, because there was nothing experimental in the faith or 
religion of the time. The result was that, notwithstanding 
all the truth the world had, it was ' dead in trespasses and 
sins/ — ready to perish. Thanks to Christianity, the moral 
standards of society have greatly changed since then. Higher 
ideas rule the world. The general conscience has been edu- 
cated up to far juster estimates of obligation. It takes vastly 
more now to make a respectably good man or woman than it 
did then. But so far as the essence and purpose of life, con- 
sciously chosen and determined, are concerned, in what respect 
does the life of the average nominal Christian to-day differ 
from the life thus prevalent before Christ ? How much more 
has he of an habitual sense of God, — of spiritual awakening 
and experience, — of penitence for sin, — of a heart given 
to God and poised on Him ? Or, were Christ and Paul now 
with us in the flesh, how large is the number of whom the 
former would not say, as he said to the Jews, " I know you 
that ye have not the love of God in you," or of whom the 
latter would not repeat his words, — "knowing God, they 
glorified Him not as God ;? ? 

There is weighty significance in the fact thus suggested ; 
and in the light of this fact, is it difficult to see why Christi- 
anity does not take deeper hold of men, and more perfectly 
control them ? For what we are unconsciously and without 
self-purpose, amidst the educative and elevating influences of 
the Gospel, we are entitled to no credit ; and putting this out 
of the case, we really rise above the heathen, and begin to 
live on the Christian plane, only when we begin to have our 
hearts moved in view of the moral meaning of Christianity, 
and thus to be quickened into the purpose to make it an ex- 
perimental thing — an inspiration, a law, a power, a life. 
We may talk, and talk well, about Christianity, and think we 



EXPEEIMENTAL RELIGION. 143 

believe it. We may attend where it is preached, and 
exhibit an unimpeachable morality, and be in good report, 
as kind-hearted people, among those who know us. But all 
this does not make us Christians to any best effect. It is 
only when down into our souls flows a mastering conscious- 
ness of God, and of what, as the supreme realities of the 
universe, God and Christ and Immortality demand, — it is 
only as, in presence of the Cross, we are touched, humbled, 
and drawn to God, with hearts awakened and glowing in the 
purpose to have no other life or law, that we are Christians 
in truth, knowing something of what the religion of Christ 
is, and illustrating its efficacy as we experience its quicken- 
ing and its joy. 

And consider, for a moment, what the life of one who has 
thus experienced religion is. I know there are pretenders. 
I know there are those "having the form of godliness, but 
denying the power thereof, " and that through the pretences 
and hollow talk of such, Christ is dishonored, and the very 
name of experimental religion made a thing to be jeered 
at. But God does not die, nor Christ become a fable, nor 
religion cease to be a reality, on account of these things. 
There are souls — many of them, who are not pretenders, 
and who, in saintly lives, daily walk in the companionship 
of Christ, 'dwelling in God, and God in them.' And think 
what the life of such a one is. What seem dreams or 
abstractions to others, are the sublimest verities to him. 
While to others God is an impersonal and shadowy concep- 
tion, the logical ultimate in the solution of the universe, or 
an inexorable law, to him He is an encompassing Presence 
of Mercy, — a Friend who never forgets, — a Father, num- 
bering the hairs of our heads, — a Shield and Help always. 
While others recognize only external and artificial relations 
between them and the men and women about them, he sees 
in all who wear the human form, whatever their complexion 
or condition, those to whom he is linked by vital and endur- 
ing ties — brothers and sisters, to whom he owes a brother's 
love and service. What to others are but so many mean- 
ingless facts are to him the symbols of a tender and com- 
prehensive love, or assurances of a power to which all 
things are possible, or of a beneficence that never sleeps. 



144 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

Go where he may, he sees everything instinct with God ; 
and every place and all time and all experience are hallowed 
by the thought of His care. The universe to him is a 
temple, life a worship, and every object or circumstance 
somehow a minister to faith, reverence, or joy. The sun- 
light greets him as the messenger of an impartial favor, and 
each star as it shines in the sky of night tells of a goodness 
that through the darkness watches still. Every flower, as 
it sheds its fragrance or nods in the wind, is a type of some 
beautiful thought of God, and all the music of nature does 
but help to keep his heart in tune. Every joy is sweeter 
as the gift of a Father's thoughtfulness, and every sorrow is 
accepted as the appointment or permission of One who is 
aiming thus to discipline him into a more perfect communion 
with himself. When clouds gather, he pierces through 
them, beholding the light beyond. When dear ones die, 
he calmly bows to their loss in the assurance that they have 
but preceded him in the journey home. In his moral con- 
flicts, assailed by temptation, or conscious of faults or sin, 
he looks to Christ and gathers courage, — looks to the cross 
and gathers strength. Amidst the varied annoyances inci- 
dent to all earthly conditions, centred on God, he maintains 
his equanimity and self-possession, and growing sweeter, 
more thoughtful of others, more forgetful of self, becomes, 
like ripening fruit, flavored and mellowed by the passing 
time. And when, at last, death approaches, he closes his 
eyes on this world, peaceful as he trustingly lays his head 
on the bosom of God, and breathes out his life here, confi- 
dent that he is to live forever. By the side of such a life, 
what is the life of the worldling, or the philosopher, or the 
most genial and unexceptionable moralist even ? Only in 
such a life does one truly live ; and however fair or pleasant in 
its seeming, any other is, at the best, empty and incomplete. 
In this life only does our whole nature find expression and 
satisfaction ; and whoever fails to live it, and in exact pro- 
portion as he fails, comes short alike of the Divine resources, 
of the rounded character, and of the strength and peace in 
which alone our destiny is fulfilled. 

Is not such a life one to be desired ? But experimental 
religion — religion as a vital principle and power in the 
soul — alone makes it possible. For this reason, many very 



EXPERIMENTAL RELIGION. 145 

excellent people fail of it. Excellent in many respects, they 
come short of the roundest and completest life; because 
they have never experienced religion ; have never had their 
hearts kindled ; have never felt the glow of God's life in 
theirs. "Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye be- 
lieved ? " asked Paul of the disciples at Ephesus ; to which 
they replied, " We have not so much as heard whether there 
be any Holy Ghost. " And this is what the class of persons 
referred to would have to say, if asked the same question. 
They do not know that there is any Holy Ghost. But 
Christ's baptism is a baptism of the Holy Ghost and of fire 
. — a baptism of awakening and consecrating power ; and 
only as we receive this baptism, and, in penitence, love, 
and self-surrender, are impelled to take Christ's hand, in 
trust and prayer, — to walk as he leads, to feel as he felt, 
to try to live as he shows us how, — are we, or can we be, 
lifted into the noblest living, because only thus can we have 
Christianity in us the ministry it aims to be, or have it go 
out from us the saving influence God has designed. Chris- 
tianity masters and ripens only those whom it experiment- 
ally enters, melts and possesses. 

These things being so, the issue tendered all who profess 
to believe in Christ is obvious. It is — an experimental re- 
ligious life, or a life empty alike of the moral flavor and 
spiritual power of the Gospel, failing of real completeness, 
whatever its excellences, and resembling in essence the 
lives of those who knew not Christ, and who were perishing 
in consequence. This is no mere talk. It is solemn fact, 
if God and Christ and souls are facts. And, full of interest 
to all, this alternative should be of special interest to us. 
Universalism is nothing if it is not the awakening and life- 
giving religion of Christ. It is this, we are pertinaciously 
affirming. Were it possible for us to be convinced that it 
is not, who is there of us that would not at once abandon 
it? And if it is what we thus insist, "what manner of 
persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godli- 
ness ! " How our hearts ought to thrill and burn with the 
Divine afflatus, and our lives give evidence of its indwelling 
presence and inspiration ! Nowhere on the broad earth is 
there a man or woman who ought to be so devout, with a 
10 



146 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

heart so glowing, with a life so built on religion as a princi- 
ple, and so pervaded by it as a power, as the Universalist ; 
none is so utterly without excuse for not being so. For 
think what we have to impress and move us, in the Divine 
Father and His pitying and pleading love ; in a Saviour 
so devoted and compassionate, so tenderly and unconquer- 
ably wedded to our redemption ; in the conversation with 
heaven and the communion with our departed to which we 
are invited ; and in all the sanctions and appeals by which 
we are addressed. Whatever the strength of his conviction 
intellectually, or however ready or zealous in church work, 
one cannot be most fully a Universalist, or be able to do 
most for Christ, and truth, and souls, under the banner of 
Universalism, until he has thus experienced it as a religion, 
seeing and feeling that it is a religion, and giving daily evi- 
dence that it has effectually wrought within him. 

It is one of the chief misfortunes of Universalism that it 
is so widely supposed to be fatally wanting in religious effi- 
cacy. This impression it is our duty immediately to cor- 
rect ; but it can be corrected only as we bear in mind the 
Master's test, " By their fruits ye shall know them." One 
life demonstrating that Universalism has power to infuse 
a sense of God into souls, and to make His life theirs, will 
do more than whole libraries of books, or any amount of 
argument. It is this power that the world now most needs ; 
and, because of its alleged fitness to communicate this, Uni- 
versalism, we are claiming, is the providential answer to 
the need. Shall we fail to make it such an answer in fact, 
because failing ourselves to appropriate and experience 
what it religiously is ? Alike for our own sakes, that we 
may personally know the best blessings of our faith, — and 
for the sake of the Gospel in our keeping, that its real char- 
acter may be vindicated, — and for the sake of our Church, 
that it may be made vital with the living Christ, — and for 
the sake of the world, that the power which alone can pos- 
sess and save may be shed into it, — we should, with one 
consent, straightway give ourselves to the New Departure 
which justice to Universalism as a Religion demands. It is 
a shame to us that, with so much to make us vitally reli- 
gious beyond all others, we are showing comparatively so 
little sisrn of it. Let this reproach henceforth cease. 



CHAPTER X. 

CONSECRATION. 

Consecration is defined to be " the act of setting" apart a 
person or thing to the service or worship of God ; dedica- 
tion to a sacred use." Every determinate giving of one's 
self to a good cause, or to a noble act or course of action, 
is therefore of the nature of consecration ; and no life takes 
on its highest character, our service of God never becomes 
most positive and complete, until it has this element of 
consecration at its centre. 

Even Christ, we are told, was made " perfect through 
sufferings ; " and what finally were these sufferings but so 
many tests of his consecration ? There is an important 
sense in which he was ' sent/ as the messenger of God's 
truth, and especially as the commendation of God's love. 
He frequently so spoke of himself, and was as frequently 
so spoken of by his Apostles. But we do not at all prop- 
erly understand him when we only so think of him. We 
must see him as one who came, as well as one who was sent, 
■ — as one who gave himself, as well as one who was ap- 
pointed of God, before we can have an insight into the 
characteristic of his life, and so begin to perceive what it is 
that renders his mission most an object of interest, and that 
makes him most potent to affect and attract souls. As we 
saw in the chapter, " Bought with a Price," "he gave him- 
self for us." Herein is his distinction, — his glory. In 
other words, he consecrated himself, as God's instrument, 
to our welfare and salvation, — as he said to the Jews, 
" The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. . . . 
Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my 
life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, 
but I lay it down of myself" (John x. 11, 17, 18) ; and as 
he said in his prayer before his betrayal, " For their sakes, 
I sanctify [or consecrate] myself" (John xvii. 19). There 

U1 



148 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

is something vastly beyond any idea of being simply sent 
in all this. As a good writer has well said, — 

" There was a certain voluntariness about his mission, which we lose 
sight of when we regard him as simply the follower of an inexorable 
law, or as coming to man's help only because he was ' sent.' I cannot 
fathom Divine council, and determine by what election or selection 
Jesus was commissioned; but this I feel — that the commission, the 
appointment, did not alone constitute him the Messiah. He did not 
come as a king's messenger, as an envoy of an empire, solely at com- 
mand. There was a deliberate acceptance of the office ; and this, not 
in the mere boy-resolve of the Temple, or the secret struggle .and pur- 
pose of the desert, nor by baptism in the Jordan, but by going out into 
life, and carrying the spirit of self-sacrifice into everything, else ' he 
had not been a man after God's idea of manhood ; for the idea of man 
which God had been for ages laboring to give, through a consecrated 
tribe and a consecrated nation, was the idea of a being whose life-law 
is sacrifice, every act and every thought being devoted to God.' His 
whole life was proof of his declaration, ' I sanctify [rather, consecrate] 
myself.' To have been merely sent made him a servant, at best a later 
Moses ; but to accept the mission made him a son — Jesus, the 
Christ." 

And what was thus true of Christ is, in our several 
places, true of every one of us all. Life becomes saintliest 
and noblest only as, under the inspiration of a noble and 
unselfish purpose, we deliberately give ourselves, in a sac- 
rifice of all that an opposite course has to offer us, conse- 
crate to whatever God, in Christ, demands. In a sense, 
again appropriating the words of the writer above cited, — 

"Everyman is 'sent' into the world; but not till he consciously, 
deliberately, accepts his mission, can he become lifted up into the great 
heirship with Christ ; not till then is he a * son.' The act of sending, 
on the part of God, must be supplemented by the act of acceptance on 
the part of man. And the acceptance must be without reserve. Not 
only must he take God's gift of life, but he must give life to duty ; 
not merely must he surrender himself to the Divine will, — which is 
compulsion, — but he must consecrate himself to the Divine love, 
which is choice. This is the complement to God's act, without which 
it cannot be complete. It matters not what other consecrating there 
may have been, what setting apart by parents or in church, what drop- 
ping of water, what imposition of hands, what repeating of catechism, 
what signing of creed ; it is all formal and valueless until the man has 
set himself apart in solemn self-dedication. Balaam and Jonah, and 
many another, have been appointed to great duties, — have been sol- 
emnly put aside for special work, — yet have utterly failed to do it, 



CONSECRATION. 149 

because there was no inward consecrating, seconding and sealing that 
of God or man. The descending of the spirit upon Jesus, or any other 
appointing of God, had availed nothing to make him the world's Re- 
deemer, had he not consecrated himself. It was the spirit in him, 
meeting, co-operating, blending with the spirit from on high, that gave 
him the power to be the Son of God : it is that in us which shall lift 
us to be sons. 

" Self-consecration, the giving of one's self up to the service of 
God, is the grand, decisive, voluntary act of the soul, which strikes at 
the root of all worldliness and selfishness, and accepts without reserve 
whatever God may order to be done, or to be borne. It is the putting 
side by side what the world has to offer, and what God has to offer, 
and the unreserved acceptance of the offer of God. It is the conscious 
and free acceptance of the high destiny God lays before His children ; 
the resolve to dedicate wholly body and mind and heart as a reason- 
able, holy and acceptable sacrifice. It is the entrance into the spirit of 
Jesus, and the carrying of the spirit out into all the details of life, in 
devotedness to man and devotion to God. It is the full at-one-ing of 
the two wills ; the reach of the spirit in man after the spirit of God ; 
the approach of the finite towards the Infinite ; the soul's eternal task 
and grandest privilege. It is not an act of the will alone, one single, 
great resolve, — the vision of the Mount, — the luxurious, beatific atti- 
tude of faith and hope and longing, into which secret prayer and 
thought sometimes throw us, when we taste angels' food, and feel as 
if the kingdoms of the world were already at our feet ; not the trans- 
figuration, but the after-duty, the coming in cooler blood down amid 
the things of earth, the meeting and casting out of the kind that only 
goes out by the spirit's fast and prayer. The true law of every life, 
the only law of life, is consecration; and 'consecration is not wrapping 
one's self in a holy web in the sanctuary, and then coming forth after 
prayer and meditation, saying, " There, I am consecrated." Con- 
secration is going out into the world where God is, and using every 
power to His glory. It is simply dedicating one's life, its whole flow, 
, to His service.' " 

It is for this reason that the Christian Life has, necessa- 
rily, always something heroic in it. The essence of hero- 
ism is self-sacrifice, and this, as above appears, is the es- 
sence of consecration also. No self-consecration is possible 
without it. In the highest sense, it is true, there is no such 
thing as self-sacrifice except in the service of wrong — since 
we win the real prizes of being in exact proportion as we 
serve God and the Right, and sacrifice ourselves only when 
we sell our birthright for a mess of pottage, in a forgetful- 
ness of what is best and broadest and most enduring in us 
for the sake of the poor possessions, or gratifications, that 
perish in the using. Christ found vastly more for himself 



150 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

in serving our race for its salvation, though at so great a 
cost, than he could have found had he declined the work in 
a mean regard only for his own ease. Always, to be most 
noble is to be most blessed ; and despite the seeming para- 
dox, we really gain least, in respect to all that constitutes 
us men and women, when we think of ourselves most, sac- 
rificing least. But speaking in the ordinary sense, and of 
those things which most people find it hardest to give up, 
Christ sacrificed himself for our sake, and we sacrifice self 
whenever, with a 

" self-renouncing will, 
That tramples down and casts aside 
The baits of pleasing ill," 

we act in a similar spirit. And in this sense, consecration 
is always heroic, because it is the utter renunciation of our- 
selves and our own wills, or preference, in the purpose to 
give ourselves to God and His service. Christ is the most 
heroic soul in all history, because his consecration was like 
his robe, ' without seam/ " Not my will, but thine be 
done," was not alone the outcry of his anguish in Geth- 
semane. It was the innermost speech of his whole life, in 
a self-abnegation that, with no thought of himself, or his 
own pleasure, said constantly, For myself, nothing — only 
the privilege of serving and saving; — for God, and for 
others, everything. How else could his life have had that 
quality which now most appeals to and touches us, most 
irresistibly demanding appreciation and response on our 
part ? And a like heroism, in a like self-abnegation, must 
possess and inspire every life that aims to be at all like his. 
There is a prevalent idea that the life of the Christian is 
tame and spiritless — fitting for women and children, and 
for languid, inert, flaccid men, but not at all the thing for 
brave, robust, energetic masculine wills. But this is only 
one of numerous grave misconceptions touching the subject. 
The Christian Life is not only the saintliest, it is the most he- 
roic life any soul can live. The most forceful will, the most 
robust and invincible energy, the most aspiring purpose finds 
here a field for its exercise — in the battle that must be 
fought with temptation ; in the struggle that must be made 



CONSECRATION. 151 

with selfishness ; in the wrestle and conflict with all the va- 
rious agencies which conspire to bring- us into captivity to 
sense and sin, and in the resolve to vanquish ' everything 
that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God/ and to sub- 
ject ' every thought to the obedience of Christ/ In all this 
there is abundant scope for whatever there is in any man ; 
and he who conquers, and, as the result, presents himself, 
body and spirit, a living sacrifice unto God, has done the 
grandest and most heroic thing any man can do — compared 
with which all that the world calls success is empty, and all 
that it worships as heroism is poor and vain. How finely 
' this is illustrated in Paul, as he pictures himself in the race, 
forgetting everything else, and ' reaching forth ' that he 
might ' win Christ, and be found in him/ saying, " This one 
thing I do," — or as he stands amidst the sorrowing elders 
of Ephesus, foreseeing ' bonds and afflictions/ but bravely 
declaring, " Yet none of these things move me, neither 
count I my life dear unto myself" ! Here was consecration 
without reserve, and here, therefore, was heroism such as 
the world has seldom seen. And our call is, to be heroes, 
every one of us, like him, in a consecration as entire — as 
a soldier, giving himself to his country, in this act renounces 
everything but the will to do his duty as he is commanded, 
for his country's sake ; as a mother, giving herself to 
motherhood and its obligations, surrenders every other will 
or purpose but the purpose to serve her children faith- 
fully, be the requirements of such fidelity what they may ; 
as Christ, giving himself to us and our redemption, had no 
other will but to accept whatever the task included, and to 
make it his very " meat to do the will of Him that sent' 
him, and to finish His work." 

Consecration is thus the key-stone in the arch of Chris- 
tian Experience. First comes Conviction — or the awak- 
ening of the conscience and the heart to a sense of duty ; 
then Conversion — or the turning of the soul definitely 
towards God and an unselfish and saintly life ; and then 
Consecration — or the solemn and continuous giving of one's 
self to Christ, — 

" When we have sworn and steadfast mean, 
Counting the cost, in all t'espy 
Our God, — in all ourselves deny." 



152 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

It is the culmination of all preceding experience and resolve 

— as marriage is the culmination of love and all its pledges. 
It is the marriage of the soul in solemn covenant to Christ 

— to live with him, and in him, and for him, until death — 
and forever. Without this, everything else in the way of 
discipleship is incomplete — as roots without flowers or 
fruit are incomplete ; as a foundation without superstruc- 
ture, as love without marriage, is incomplete. This alone 
puts us into the calendar of God's faithful and accepted 
ones. Generous impulses are not despised. Respectable 
habits and conventional virtues fail not to be counted for 
whatever they are worth. But these, whatever the life they 
produce, never answer the highest demands. Only conse- 
cration does this — because it alone imparts the element of 
heroic surrender and purpose, and thus makes all life, from 
innermost thought to outermost action, a renunciation of 
self, and an offering to God. 

Has this subject hitherto had the place in our thoughts 
and labors to which it is entitled ? We have insisted on a 
good life ; but have we urged and emphasized the necessity 
of this absolute and supreme Consecration, as the facts and 
principles in the case require ? Something of the spirit 
thus demanded we have had, giving us — among our min- 
isters, some as devoted, unselfish, heroic, as have ever 
lifted hand or voice for the Gospel's sake, and among our 
people, some as earnest, self-denying, saintly, as the church, 
under any name, has ever known. But, as previous chap- 
ters have indicated, the proportion of such has not been 
what it should have been, nor has our system of effort con- 
templated such a result with the solicitude it should have 
done. We need an awakening and a New Departure in 
this respect, therefore. Perhaps this was sufficiently im- 
plied in our last chapter, no Experimental Religion being 
possible without a consecrating purpose. But the subject 
is so important, and has, moreover, commanded among us 
so little of the attention to which it is entitled, that I have 
thought it deserving of distinct and special presentation. It 
must henceforth occupy a place in our regards and methods 
more commensurate with its real deserts, or our personal 
service of Christ will never have the self-surrender and 



CONSECRATION. 153 

heroism which can alone give it completeness, and our 
Church will fatally lack the enthusiasm and spiritual fervor 
without which it must fail of the work to which it is called. 
If anything, Christ must be paramount. No other view 
can be consistently taken of our obligations to him and 
the Christian Life. Is there a God, and do we belong to 
Him ? Is Christ a reality, and has he died to redeem us ? 
Is all our power to think, to feel, to do, from God, and are 
all our best ideas, and finest resources, and richest privileges 
and opportunities, only parts of the result of what Christ has 
done ? Then what alternative have we but to confess our 
obligations, and to give ourselves to God in Christ with the 
entire unreserve which these things, if they be facts and not 
fables, so obviously require ? Or, what reason has there ever 
been why any should forget self, and consecrate themselves 
to God, that does not equally exist in the case of every one 
of us ? We just now looked at Paul, in his utter and heroic 
self-devotion. Did he do more than his duty ? Or, did any 
of the Apostles, or any of the saints and martyrs who, 

" in life and death, 
With Christ, their Lord, in view, 
Learned from the Holy Spirit's breath 
To suffer and to do " ? 

If not, by what motive were they addressed that is not as 
imperatively addressed to us, or in what respect is the obli- 
gation of any one of us less than theirs ? 

Another consideration is not unworthy of mention. Does 
not self-respect suggest that, having become identified with 
any work, or responsible for any duty, we shall aim to be 
all that the work or duty requires ? How much self-respect 
has one who, having enlisted as a soldier, is willing to be a 
deserter or a coward, or fails to consecrate himself, soul and 
body, to his country and to his duty as its champion and 
defender ? Or, how much self-respect has a wife, or a mother, 
who is not anxious to be all that a wife or a mother should 
be ? Apply the same principle to the subject before us, and 
what follows ? Making any pretence to faith in God, or 
Christ, does not self-respect require that we be no less anx- 
ious to fulfil the whole duty such a faith imposes ? But 



154 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

who does this, or can do it, without the central and control- 
ling consecration which Christ illustrates, and which the 
whole Bible enjoins ? 

As the writer already quoted admirably says,* — 

li The failure of men so largely in the true life is because they will 
not comprehend what an utter thing consecration is, and how utterly 
impossible the kingdom is without it. The difference between a man 
who has consecrated himself, and the man who has made up his mind 
that on the whole it is better for him to lead a correct life, is as the dif- 
ference between fiction and fact. Nothing can turn the man consecrate. 
Like Paul, he counts all loss gain ; and the catalogue of pains and pen- 
alties is but his inspiration. What would deter others stimulates him : 
what would dismay, confirms. No high endeavor, no grand result, 
comes otherwise. It is the man rising to his noblest height, doing all 
things through the Christ strengthening him ; the man no way luke- 
warm, but kindling with, possessed by, ' the enthusiasm of humanity/ 
and so treading down all intervening obstacles, till, more than con- 
queror, he wins ' that crown with peerless glories bright.' 

" I know just what every one says down in his heart as he reads 
this. I know how we shrink from such deliberate surrender of our- 
selves, our all, to God's law ; and I know how utterly life fails of its 
grandeur, how it loses the promise in this, and its hope in the life to 
come, because this one absolutely necessary thing we will not do. We 
are willing enough to serve God if we can only make our own reserva- 
tions. Rebels so gladly take the oath of allegiance. But it is the 
reservation which kills the quality of the loyalty : it is the reservation 
that makes of us, not followers of God, as dear children, but timid and 
time-serving and unreliable slaves, — in the thing easy, the thing con- 
venient, the thing in which we see immediate reward or penalty, obe- 
dient ; but when the pressure comes, and the whole man is called on, 
when a cross is to be borne, hesitating, half faithful, or recreant. 
There are times of tribulation in every human experience, often unrec- 
ognized by other men, — things in our inner secret lives, as well as of 
our outward and visible, — when nothing can stand but the soul which 
is all God's ; there are times when men terribly fail, when the disaster 
of their moral overthrow is broad and deep. It is only the old story. 
The house is built upon the sand. The life is not riveted into the core 
of the rock. There has been some reserve in the consecration, — a 
secret flaw, which at the test-moment betrays itself, and wrecks the 
man. We do not want to be at the mercy of flaws. In the metal thor- 
oughly welded flaws will not be. Make self-consecration thorough, 
and the gates of hell cannot prevail." 

* These several extracts are from an article by Rev. J. F. W. Ware, 
credited by one of our papers to the " Monthly Journal." They so pre- 
cisely express what I desired to say, that I deemed it wiser to appropriate 
the language, and give credit accordingly, than to undertake to clothe 
the same ideas in words of my own. 



CONSECRATION. 155 

Shall not this whole subject have the increased attention 
among us which it deserves, and will we not as a Church at 
once commit ourselves to the New Departure concerning it 
whereunto we are so clearly called ? Universalism above 
all other forms of Christian Faith fulfils all the conditions 
of a consecrating power. How it fills and satisfies the be- 
lieving soul ! What revelations it makes of God's love and 
of Christ's redeeming force, and what visions it opens of the 
harmony in which all God's creatures are to be reconciled 
to Him and brought into unity with each other ! How it 
glorifies alike joy and sorrow in the radiance of a changeless 
-beneficence ! How it pours balm into every bleeding heart ! 
And while it so proclaims the inexorable certainty of retri- 
bution, how it plies us with motives — irresistible, when 
understood — to know only the will of God as our rule of 
life, and to yield ourselves to Christ's guidance as the sole 
condition of the highest good ! Could we but once be 
touched by the power of all that our faith thus is, we should 
need no argument, or exhortation, to move us to consecrate 
ourselves to it, and to the service of the Father and the 
Saviour who speak to us through it. Our whole being 
would be flooded with a sense of obligation and privilege ; 
and glowing with grateful emotion and holy purpose, we 
should each prostrate ourselves at the feet of Christ, ex- 
claiming, — 

" More love to thee, O Christ, 

More love to thee ! 
Hear thou the prayer I make 

On bended knee; 
This is my earnest plea — 
More love, O Christ, to thee, 

More love to thee ! 

" Once earthly joy I craved, 

Sought peace and rest ; 
Now thee alone I seek : 

Give what is best. 
This all my prayer shall be — 
More love, Christ, to thee, 

More love to thee ! " 



CHAPTER XI. 
THE BIBLE. 

It is one of the honorable distinctions of the Universal- 
ist Church, that it has, from the first, been built " on the 
foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ him- 
self being the chief corner-stone. ?; Strangely outlawed, 
ecclesiastically, as infidels, and popularly regarded as en- 
emies of the Bible insidiously concealing its rejection under 
its pretended use, we have all the time steadily made faith 
in it, next to character, the cardinal condition to our fellow- 
ship. No Christians, indeed, have evinced a profounder or 
more sincere reverence for the Bible, or have furnished 
abler or more earnest defenders of it, or have more con- 
stantly or conscientiously deferred to its authority, than we. 
In the whole history of theological misrepresentation, there 
is nothing grosser — in the case of those who have known 
better, nothing more wicked — than the systematic falsifi- 
cation of our position in this particular, — a falsification 
that has doubtless done more than any other single cause 
to make Universalism odious in the estimation of Christian 
people, and to procure for us the treatment we have so 
unjustly received as ' heathen-men and publicans. 7 No 
odium, no unkind treatment was ever more undeserved. The 
Bible has been our final appeal always ; and during these 
past thirty years especially, amidst the speculations of Ger- 
man rationalism, and a 'liberal Christianity 7 that has been 
but a second edition of old-fashioned Deism ' revised,' while 
many others have yielded, or oscillated, we have stood like 
a rock, — conceding all that genuine scholarship and hon- 
est criticism have required, but adhering immovably to the 
Divine origin of the Bible, and affirming its authority with 
the same positiveness with which we have 'affirmed the 
existence of God and the reality of Christ himself. In this 
respect, no New Departure is possible for us in the direc- 

156 



THE BIBLE. 157 

tion of faith, for neither we, nor any other church, can 
stand more firmly by the Bible, or more strenuously insist 
on its Divine worth and claims, than we have done. And 
yet, we nevertheless need a New Departure concerning it, 
and shall not cease very seriously to suffer in our most 
vital interests, so long as this Departure fails to be fittingly 
made. 

Two questions of fundamental interest meet us touching 
the Bible : — the first concerns its origin ; the second con- 
cerns our need of it. With the first, it does not fall within 
the purpose of these pages, except incidentally, to deal ; 
but the second sustains such relations to the fact with 
which this chapter is specially concerned, that only through 
some notice of it can we be best introduced to what is to 
follow. 

The chapter on Experimental Religion referred to what 
God is as the central Life of the universe. And because 
of what He thus is, a knowledge of Him, that there may 
be conformity to His will, is a necessity of souls. Imagine 
the consequences should our globe, or the planets in space; 
break away from His hand, or should a tree, or a field of 
wheat, try the experiment of growing in some other way 
than in accordance with the methods He has ordained, and 
we only imagine results in the material world analogous 
to those which actually occur whenever and wherever a 
soul sets up for itself, and undertakes to live in defiance 
or in disregard of Him as the centre and law of moral 
being. 

But how shall we attain this knowledge of God and of 
the moral conditions He has established, which is so essen- 
tial for us ? Is it said that all Nature is open to us, and 
that, with this and the spiritual instincts and intuitions of 
our own souls — reason, conscience, and the religious sen- 
timent, we have all that is requisite for our instruction ? 
But how much will these teach us ? Look at the idolater 
and the polytheist, look wherever men, of themselves as 
only thus aided, have constructed theologies, and attempted 
to solve the problems of God and of our own being, duty 
and destiny, and see. All men have Nature and its teach- 
ings, such as they are. All men have more or less of rea- 



158 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

son, conscience, and the religious sentiment. But do all 
men know God, or have ail men attained, or even ap- 
proached just conceptions of His character, or correct esti- 
mates of human relations and obligations, or a satisfactory 
philosophy of death ? God is just, indeed, and holds no 
man responsible for more than He has given him. Hence, 
we are never to overlook, enough is furnished in these 
sources of natural suggestion and instruction to make it 
proper that even those least favored shall be held to moral 
account, because supplied with the materials for some ideas 
of a Supreme Power and moral duty. Accordingly, 
though arguing to show the insufficiency of these things 
for the highest purposes, Paul distinctly testifies of God 
that "His eternal power and Godhead, though they be in- 
visible, yet " have been " seen ever since the world was 
made, being understood by His works, that they [who hold 
the truth in unrighteousness] might have no excuse " (Rom. 
i. 20) ; and further, that "the Gentiles . . . though they 
have no [specially announced moral] law, are a law to 
themselves, since they manifest the work of the law written 
in their hearts, and their conscience also bears them wit- 
ness, while their inward thoughts, answering one to the 
other, either justify or else condemn them"* (Rom. ii. 
14, 15). And yet, though this is true, and all that could 
be thus given has been imparted, still, in the nature of the 
case, it does not and cannot answer all that is required — 
any more than the ability of a child to attain some things 
of itself enables it thus to gather all that is important for 
it to know. The child needs help from some superior mind, 
and without it will come, at length, to a point beyond 
which it can proceed no farther. We, it is true, ripen out 
of our childish capacities as the years pass ; but in pres- 
ence of the grand and infinite mysteries of being, we are 
always children, unequal, of ourselves, to the task of 
grasping and solving them. At the most, when what is 
called Natural Religion has done all it can for us, we get 
only rudimentary hints, — never full and definite instruc- 
tion ; are able simply to walk along the skirts of the delec- 

* Conybeare and Howson. 



THE BIBLE. 159 

table mountains, — never to scale their heights and get 
their broadest outlooks. For these, we must have help 
from some source outside ourselves, and higher than we — 
interpreting Nature for us more perfectly than we can ; 
informing reason, educating conscience, enlightening the 
religious sentiment ; and except as this help is given, and 
in condescension to our inability, God thus makes him- 
self and related spiritual facts and truths known, no clear 
knowledge or assurance concerning them is possible to us. 

There is a broad distinction between such spiritual 
knowledge and what is called scientific knowledge, which 
■many fail to consider. Do we need any special help from 
God to instruct us in Chemistry, Natural Philosophy, or 
Mathematics ? it is not unfrequently asked, with much 
show of confidence — as if our competency to make our 
way unaided in these implies an equal competency in the 
domain of spiritual truth. But, unfortunately for this kind 
of argument, there is an important difference between 
these departments of knowledge. In all scientific or math- 
ematical investigations, we have some certain data of fact 
or figures, to commence with, and thus, for every step we 
take, have the solid rock to stand upon — because having 
the means for testing and demonstrating the correctness of 
our conclusions. But it is not so when we enter upon re- 
ligious investigations. The required data are nowhere to 
be had. Like one attempting an hypothesis concerning the 
inhabitants of the sun, or trying to solve an arithmetical 
problem that furnishes no initial figures, we are in the 
realm of pure conjecture, with no facts to build on ; are 
dealing altogether with ' unknown quantities/ with no 
known quantity as a starting-point. " Give me a place to 
stand," said Archimedes, " and I will move the world. ,; 
No doubt ; but where is he to stand ? True, as has been 
intimated, there are some data which, left to ourselves, we 
are warranted in regarding as certainties, and on the basis 
of which some rudimentary moral and religious ideas may 
be built ; but they are not the kind required for a complete 
and satisfactory theology. They give us glimpses and 
suggestions ; but when we push our inquiries, and ask who 
God is, and precisely what are His relations to us, and who 



160 



OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 



we are, and what are our duties, and what is to become of 
us, we at once find ourselves launched upon a sea of uncer- 
tainty, where, without chart, compass, light-house, or 
sounding-line, we can only sail by guess ; are hopelessly 
confronted by moral and spiritual summits, rising sheer 
before us, up which there are no steps of induction or 
inference, no processes of logic, no certainties from any 
source about us, or within us, by which we can climb into 
any knowledge, or absolute faith, by way of demonstration. 

This the whole history of our race, from first to last, 
proclaims. At all events, it proclaims that men of them- 
selves do not attain any certitude or demonstration ; and 
considering the universality of this fact, not only the fair, 
but the inevitable conclusion is that they can not. Else, 
why do we not somewhere find men outside the line of 
what is alleged to be supernatural illumination, making 
some progress in religious ideas ? That we do not, save 
as, here and there, an exceptional mind has gone beyond 
the masses in its unavailing speculations — speculations 
which have seldom had any practical fruit, is known to all 
who know anything of the religious history of mankind. 
Look at China. Except as it has been inoculated with the 
ideas of Christendom through the freer intercourse of these 
later years, it presents to-day the same idolatry, the same 
low religious conceptions as centuries ago. So with Japan. 
So with India. So — saying nothing of those lower down 
in the scale of development — with every comparatively 
cultivated or half-civilized people of whom we have any 
information. Why should this be so, if men unaided are 
sufficient for all the purposes of moral and religious knowl- 
edge ? Does not the fact that it is so demonstrate man's 
incompetency, of himself, to deal with the spiritual prob- 
lems which press upon us, and so demonstrate the necessity 
for some direct and special communication from God ? 

The Bible purports to be such a communication — or, 
rather, the record of a series of such communications. Is 
it worthy of our confidence as such, and can we accept its 
enunciations concerning God, and truth, and duty, as giv- 
ing us the certain knowledge we need ? If it is — and 
here is the point for which the considerations foregoing 



THE BIBLE. 161 

have been designed to prepare — if it is, then the necessity 
in answer to which it was bestowed, no less demands that it 
shall be used ; nor can it be neglected, or pushed aside by 
anything else, except at the peril of all the interests it is 
intended to serve. If it be, in fact, from God, it is not a 
thing to be trifled with. What it contains is for the life of 
souls and the life of the world ; and spiritual darkness and 
death are the penalties of ignoring, or undertaking to live 
without it. What but this is the sum of the universal 
testimony it has made for itself ? • Sacred books ' are, 
indeed, not uncommon among the nations ; and there are 
those who would have us regard the Bible as only of the 
same character as all the rest. But look along the track of 
any other ' sacred books ; which the world has ever heard 
of, — look, one by one, through the several fields they have 
professed to illumine, and, as compared with the results 
which have attended the Bible, what have they, any of them, 
ever done for man, or for men ? Even out of our Christian 
churches some are issuing, in these days, who, forgetting 
what, under God, has made them in all that is best in their 
manhood or womanhood, are glorifying Buddhism, vaunting 
it as not inferior to, if it does not excel, Christianity. But, 
as Wendell Phillips has well said, "to all this, the answer 
is, India, past and present." And so in respect to all that 
may, directly or indirectly, be set up to rival or equal the 
Bible, the one answer is, Tell us what it has done ! The 
awakened but unlettered sailor, wishing to purchase a Bible, 
happily designated it as " the Book that speaks for itself; " 
and in nothing does it more eloquently, or more demonstra- 
bly, speak for itself than in the work of enlightenment, 
healing and quickening it has accomplished. History is to 
be searched in vain for any similar work, or for any that 
begins to approach it. 

Let it be granted, if any so desire, that the Bible has not 
equally illuminated all minds where its light has shined, nor 
conquered all error or evil where it has wrought. Let it be 
granted that many who have professed to be its friends have 
been corrupt and cruel, and that were any one to retort 
the question concerning those to whom it has come, which 
was just now asked of those having only Nature and their 
11 



162 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

own spiritual instincts and intuitions for their teachers, the 
question, viz. : Have they all attained just conceptions of 
God, or correct estimates of human relations and obligations, 
or a satisfactory philosophy of death ? we should be com- 
pelled to answer, very emphatically, No. But what gift of 
God fully, or soon, accomplishes all for which it was de- 
signed ? In its very nature, the work intended through the 
Bible is progressive, and therefore gradual — as the work 
of the sun, every day, is by degrees to dissipate the dark- 
ness, not instantaneously to transform night into noonday. 
The Bible is leaven ; and of necessity, all leaven does its 
work slowly, atom by atom. But let any one, friend or 
foe, candidly survey the field of the Bible's influence, or 
apply any honest test as to the extent of its leavening 
power, and what, unmistakably, does he see ? What 
transformations ! What victories over darkness and wrong ! 
What consolations ! What awakenings ! What rough 
places smoothed, and crooked places made straight ! What 
births and growths of finer and loftier sentiment, of nobler 
character, of holier and saintlier living ! Account for it as 
we may, the fact is indisputable that wherever the Bible 
has become most an element in the popular life, (here are 
found the most of those fruits which might be expected to 
grow from the seeds of a Divine Revelation. The worst 
and darkest periods in the histo^ of the Jewish nation were 
the periods when their Scriptures were most forgotten and 
neglected ; and the darkest and saddest portions of Chris- 
tian history are those in which the Bible was least in the 
people's hands, and its spirit least in their hearts. Undenia- 
bly, the argument of results is altogether on the side of the 
Bible ; and if a tree is known by its fruits, the conclusion is 
inevitable that the Bible is Divine. How otherwise are we 
to account for what it has done ? Let those who declare it 
not of God answer this question. 

Meanwhile, not now further to press this argument of 
results, we may confidently hold the Bible in the face of the 
world, and, whether it be Divine or not, can say, in the graphic 
language of the prophet, Unto this let men seek: "if they 
will not speak according to this word, . . . every one of 
them shall pass through the land distressed and famished ; 



THE BIBLE. 163 

. . . and he shall cast his eyes upwards and look down to 
the earth, and lo ! distress and darkness ! gloom, tribula- 
tion and accumulated darkness"* (Isa. viii. 20-22) ! No 
words can better describe what comes of rejecting, or of not 
having the Bible. Where do we find the highest concep- 
tions of God — conceptions which, while far beyond any 
that unaided man has ever attained, are yet such as lie most 
easily in our minds and hearts, most accordant with all that 
Nature suggests, and with what reason, conscience and the 
religious sentiment demand ? Where do we find the clearest 
and best ideas of duty, and the firmest and most intelligent 
•assurance of Immortality, and the largest measure of moral 
and intellectual development, and the most elevated charac- 
ter, and the most advanced type of what we mean by civili- 
zation ? Where, but exactly where the Bible has most fully 
done its work ? The zone of light around the globe is the 
zone of the Bible. The leading countries of the world — the 
countries whose people are most and have most, are the 
countries where the Bible is most read, and in which it may 
claim to have had its practical worth best put to the 
test. In proportion as we go outside its ideas and moral 
force, we go into shadow : — go into the midst of supersti- 
tion and general ignorance ; go into the midst of despotism 
or a savage freedom ; go where man is degraded and woman 
a slave ; go where it is literally true, in respect to all highest 
human needs and interests, that souls " pass through the land 
distressed and famished," and where everything attests the 
absence of any sufficient power to instruct and elevate the 
people. 

Contrast the condition of Catholic and Protestant countries, 
— or the Catholic and Protestant portions of the same 
country. Why should not those that are Catholic be as far 
advanced in freedom, in general intelligence, in material 
enterprise, in all the elements of the highest civilization, as 
those that are Protestant ? Can any reason be found in the 
nature or capacities of the people ? I am not aware that it 
can. But who does not know that, an immeasurable differ- 
ence is shown in such a comparison ? The puritans came to 

* Lowth's translation. 



164 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

the rugged shores of New England, bringing nothing but 
themselves and the Bible, and finding no gold, no soft and 
genial climate, no rich and productive soil — finding only 
an inhospitable climate and aland of granite and of ice. The 
cavaliers and adventurers of Spain went to the fair and fruit- 
ful fields of Mexico and Peru, finding a delicious climate, a 
productive soil, and mines inestimably rich in gold, but 
carrying no Bible. What is the result ? New England is 
what she is ; — the Spanish colonies are what they are. To 
the same effect, Spain and Portugal in contrast with Eng- 
land, South America in contrast with the United States, — 
or, if one wishes to look into the same country, the Catholic 
and Protestant cantons of Switzerland, the Catholic and 
Protestant districts in Ireland, Louisiana and Massachu- 
setts in our own land, are further illustrations. Why this 
difference ? Various causes unquestionably combine to 
explain it ; but the chief is to be found in a series of facts 
of which the Bible is the centre. Protestantism, based on 
the right of private judgment, puts the Bible into the 
people's hands, and imbibing its ideas, the people become 
quickened by its moral power ; while Catholicism withholds 
the Bible, or gives it to the people only through the lips of 
priests, or in the interpretations of the church. During 
these last few years, Italy seems to have re-awakened, 
and more recently, the political regeneration of Spain 
seems to have begun ; but the complete resurrection and 
enfranchisement of their people will come only when they 
shall be a Bible-reading and Bible reverencing people, and 
when home and church and state shall feel the inspirations 
which the Bible can alone shed into them. And could the 
Bible be to-day given to poor, priest-ridden Ireland, or to 
Mexico, or to South America, so that the masses of the 
people should be transfused with its ideas, and nurtured and 
established in its principles, a new life would at once be 
manifest in them all, and the contrast now so painfully 
apparent between them and Protestant countries would 
straightway begin to disappear. 

These are facts often referred to, but that never yet have 
commanded the general consideration they deserve. " This 
is the cannon that is to emancipate Italy," Garibaldi was, 



THE BIBLE. 165 

some years ago, reported to have said to his son, handing 
him a Bible. The remark may or may not have been made ; 
but it is worthy to have been, for it is true. As has, in sub- 
stance, been said, the history of the Bible is that of the 
world's best civilization. Everywhere, it has been the 
herald of social progress and a ripening culture. Nay, more 
than this, to change the figure, has it not proved, wher- 
ever planted, 'the tree of life,' whose leaves have been for 
the healing of the nations ? Oppressions have disappeared, 
thrones have tottered, ignorance and superstition have fled 
because of it. Catching instruction and inspiration from it, 
the masses have been filled with a sense of their manhood, 
and have risen into a perception of their rights. Star-cham- 
ber and stamp-act have given way. Ship-money and tea-tax 
have been resisted. Freedom has been achieved. Schools 
have multiplied. Laws have softened. All refining and 
elevating agencies have been increased ; and the varied ele- 
ments — moral, intellectual, spiritual, that, if the promises 
of God and the visions of prophets are ever to be realized, 
are at some time to culminate in the millennium on earth, 
and more perfectly in the life of the redeemed in heaven, 
have more and more borne sway. 

And all this, let it be observed, on account of the inherent 
and quickening power of the Bible, though so many of its 
best and highest meanings have been veiled and perverted 
by such gross misunderstandings, and though there never 
have been lacking those who have used it to bolster wrong, 
to put the brakes on the wheels of progress, to gag the 
complaints of the trampled, and to throw all the weight 
of its authority against the advance of science and every at- 
tempt at reform. What would it not have done had its 
spirit always been rightly caught, and had it been used only 
for the ends that God approves ! 

And what is thus to be said as to nations is to be said 
also, with equal truth, of individuals ; — is true of nations 
only because antecedently true of individuals. How does 
society improve except as the men and women composing 
it are first affected and improved ? Far too easy, it must 
be conceded, it is to find those who profess to believe the 
Bible, and who read it more or less, whose lives give little 



166 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

evidence of its elevating or sanctifying power. But admit- 
ting all that must be admitted on account of such, is it not 
true, the world over, that, other things being equal, those 
most familiar with the Bible and most under its legitimate 
influence, are of all people the best and happiest — most 
elevated in their tastes, broadest and tenderest in their sym- 
pathies, stanchest in their virtue, richest in their experi- 
ence ? Speaking of the rule, is it not true that as a man or 
woman renounces or neglects the Bible, life is yielded to 
material or earthly uses, — that the light of God's face and 
of the heavenly inheritance fades out of it, — that there is 
a deadening of spiritual consciousness and sensibility, — 
that the eye loses its upward look, and character its divine 
flavor ? Who will answer, Nay, to these questions ? Centu- 
ries ago, the Psalmist said, " Wherewithal shall a young 
man cleanse his way ? By taking heed thereto according 
to thy Word. . . . I will never forget Thy precepts: for with 
them Thou hast quickened me "■ (Psa. cxix. 9, 93). And 
what he said, having only a portion of what we have as the 
Old Scriptures, we may far more emphatically say, having 
what now- constitutes the Bible, with all the treasures of the 
New added to the Old. There is no moral counsellor, or 
guide, like it ; and outside its pages, there is nothing that 
can quicken souls. Most persons are familiar with the story 
of the deist, who, after publicly denouncing the Bible as 
undeserving of confidence, was found at home instructing his 
child from the New Testament, and who, on being arraigned 
for his inconsistency, frankly confessed that, desiring to 
teach the child morality, he knew not where else to find 
such morality as in the Bible. I knew a similar case. A 
relative of min^e — an estimable man, but an unbeliever in 
Christianity, and at one time the blankest atheist I ever 
met, had a son about to go from home, to be thrown into 
numerous temptations. He naturally desired to shield and 
strengthen him to the utmost : and what did he do ? Un- 
believer though he was, he put a Bible into the young man's 
trunk, having first written in it to this effect, — "I will not 
now debate who wrote this book. It is certainly full of 
valuable instruction, whatever the source from which it 
came. Read it, my son, and try to follow its counsels. If 



THE BIBLE. 167 

you do, whatever your temptations, I am sure you will be a 
virtuous man." What testimony this to the important re- 
lations which the Bible holds to our moral welfare ! Grant 
all that infidelity alleges against it, and it still remains the one 
book essential beyond all others to our moral culture and spirit- 
ual satisfaction. Search the world, and we find that the 
noblest character flowers only out of roots which the Bible 
has watered ; and when sorrow comes, when loved ones die, 
when suffering is to be endured, when death is to be met, 
how dark are the glooms which fall about the. heart which 
the Bible has not illumined ! how full of anguish the grief 
-which knows nothing of the Bible's consolations ! how 
uneasy the bed where the Bible ministers not to the soul ! 
how terrible the grave into which the Bible sheds no sun- 
shine, and across which beams none of the radiance of the 
Immortality it discloses 1 

These things, then, being so, who that has any regard to 
his own interests, or the interests of his Church, or the 
wider interests of the country and the world, can be indif- 
ferent to them? This, unfortunately, is not a Bible-reading 
age. There is so much other reading, and so many other 
calls are making their exactions on thought and time, and, 
on the part of many, there is such an indifference to the 
Bible, or such a self-complacency inducing the feeling that 
they have no need of it, that the Book is probably now more 
neglected than at any period since it was put b} 7 Protestant- 
ism and the printing-press into the people's hands. Not 
that there is any considerable abatement of respect for it, 
or of faith in it. Despite all that infidelity, and a pseudo- 
science are, openly or covertly, doing to dethrone it, per- 
haps it was never more generally regarded as a Book some- 
how from God than to-day. Comparatively few intelligent 
families are willingly destitute of it in some form, while 
numberless costly illustrated and gilded editions, specimens 
of which meet us in parlors and elsewhere, indicate the 
reverence in which it is still popularly held. But it is not 
correspondingly read — except in sickness and sorrow and 
peculiar crises of experience. What is the result ? From 
a neglect of the Bible, come the materialism, the mammon- 
worship, the spiritual emptiness and ignobleness, the prac- 



168 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

tical infidelity, so much of which we see. From a neglect 
of the Bible, come to a large extent the prevalent unsettled- 
ness and vacillation of opinion, the readiness to be capti- 
vated by novelties, and the extravagances and religious 
crudities of all sorts which so easily find disciples. Espe- 
cially is it on account of a neglect of the Bible in homes and 
by firesides that so many youth are growing up with so lit- 
tle religious knowledge and so little preparation for life, to 
be by and by turned adrift, with no fixed ideas, " tossed to 
and fro, and carried about by every wind of doctrine. " 
How many people, of any religious convictions, are in the 
habit of carefully studying, or even of attentively reading, 
the Bible ? How many do not put it aside for other reading 
— perhaps even on the Sabbath, for novels, flashy maga- 
zines, or Sunday papers ? How many young men, or young 
women, make it a point to read it every day, or every week ? 
How many parents do this, with their families, or by them- 
selves ? How many children are carefully and reverently 
trained to the practice ? 

No Christians can afford to be unconcerned in respect to 
this subject. But it has special claims upon us. The Bible 
is a Universalist book. Not only, therefore, has it more 
spiritual wealth and nutriment for us than for our friends 
who fail to see its real meaning, but it is our fortress and 
strength, upon an intelligent use of which the future of our 
Faith and our Church depends. True, the result we affirm 
is reached through a variety of paths, and, the moral consti- 
tution of the universe being granted, is hinted, or necessi- 
tated, all the facts being duly considered, start where we 
will. Common sense suggests it. Nature in its pervading 
spirit prophesies it. Every human affection yearns for it. 
Every human sympathy protests against anything less broad, 
or inclusive. Reason, conscience, every moral instinct, un- 
perverted, points towards it. Every perfection of God, His 
existence being admitted, — every spiritual faculty or possi- 
bility of man, — every principle in morals, — every axiom 
in science is an argument for it. As the consequence, faith 
in this result is variously cherished — with Christ and with- 
out him ; on the authority of the Bible and independent of 
it; in connection with ' evangelical ' opinions and as a part of 



THE BIBLE. 169 

our harmonious theology ; as an Instinct, as a Sentiment, as 
a Philosophy, as a Religion. But while this is true, and 
though every tendency of religious thought and opinion is 
in our direction, we have no hold upon the Future as a 
Church except by the force of the Bible, giving us Univer- 
salism as a religion. Whatever intimations, or confirma- 
tions, of it from other sources there may be, it is by the 
testimony of the Bible alone that we, or anybody, can be 
absolutely certified that Universalism is true. Only as a 
Bible doctrine, buttressed everywhere by a " thus-saith-the- 
Lord," can it be most unanswerably established. And ex- 
cept as its believers constantly make the Bible their study 
and reliance, they can never to best effect be prepared to 
give an answer to every one that asketh, nor can our Zion 
be most vital in itself, or most thoroughly equipped for its 
most desirable triumphs. The one great obstacle in our 
way is the mistaken impression that the Bible is against us. 
Correct this idea, and with everything else already in our 
favor, the field, of course, is ours. To secure this correc- 
tion, by the ability to expound the Scriptures which thor- 
ough personal study and familiarity with them alone can 
give, should, therefore, be henceforth one of the leading 
purposes of all who call themselves Universalists. Holiness 
of life, attesting the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit 
in our hearts, should be our first aim. Then, for our own 
sake and for the sake of our truth and our Church, we 
should make the Bible the fountain from which we inces- 
santly draw, that we may get the personal instruction and 
help which it is its exclusive province to impart, and that 
we may thus be prepared to edify and convince others, 
meeting their Bible arguments with better and stronger 
Bible arguments, and showing that not only do all other 
arguments array themselves on the side of Universalism, 
but that the Bible, from first to last, chants the grand 
anthem of a complete redemption. 

The time was when Universalists were pre-eminently a 
Bible reading people, having a greater familiarity with the 
whole Bible than any others, and proportionally better able 
to do valiant Bible battle for their faith. Then the most 
unlettered Universalist was more entirely at home in the 



170 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

closest hand-to-hand Bible argument than the rabbis and 
doctors of the dominant sects. Not the elders simply, but 
the young men and young women — boys and girls, some- 
times — could vindicate the harmony of the Scriptures, by 
turning to the context of passages cited against us, and 
satisfactorily explaining their meaning. Our stripling 
Davids often put Goliaths to flight. But, though there is 
probably as much reading of the Bible among us as among 
the average of other churches, it is to be feared that this 
pre-eminence is no longer ours, and that our young people 
particularly are coming forward without that acquaintance 
with the Bible needful to their own most intelligent faith, 
or to the satisfactory defence of their opinions. Young 
people not unfrequently ask me, How are such and such 
passages to be understood, and what texts can I quote 
against the other side ? — to whom my invariable reply, 
after such information as the moment allows, is, Study the 
Bible for yourself, and see. There is reason, doubtless, for 
the change thus noted. Those former days were days 
when every Universalist was a sort of Ishmael, and was 
expected to go armed, ready at any moment to receive and 
repel an assault. The policy of the opposition has now 
changed. Universalism, for the most part, is ignored. A 
partial truce, if not entire peace, has been proclaimed. 
There is, naturally, among us no such eagerness to prepare 
for fight. The arts of war decline in time of peace — or 
prolonged truce. Muskets become rusty, and swords lie 
unused in their sheaths. And it being forgotten that the 
Bible is not only the sword of the spirit, but the bread of 
life, and that, however one may cease to use it for fight, he 
must still use it for spiritual sustenance and strength, it 
has fallen into the comparative neglect spoken of. But we 
are putting our personal spiritual life and all that our 
Church stands for every day in peril so long as this neglect 
continues, and the time has fully come for a New Depart- 
ure, committing us to the habits of Bible study herein 
urged — not for purposes of controversy, but for the far 
higher purposes of Christian culture and Christian effective- 
ness. Do what else we may, we can build on the solid 
rock, and accomplish the best work either for ourselves, or 



THE BIBLE. 171 

for Christ and his Church in the awakening and salvation of 
souls, only as we build on the Bible, making it the ground 
of our assurance and the means of our power. 

And then, think of our children. Who of us does not 
desire that they shall grow up, rooted in right principles, 
and supplied with all the materials for the noblest and hap- 
piest living ? But how is this to be, except as they are 
educated to love, and read and understand the Bible ? 
Moreover, they are our recruits for the army of Christ ; 
those who are to bear aloft the banner of our faith, and 
take up and carry forward whatever good work we begin — 
if our Church is to live and grow. But how are they to be 
and do what is thus implied, if they are not duly trained in 
a knowledge of the Bible, and accustomed to draw nutri- 
ment and inspiration from it ? If we neglect them in this 
respect, shall we be surprised if they fall away from us 
into the current of popular sects and traditional theologies, 
or, far worse, miss their way in life, and fall into moral 
waste ? "If Universalists sleep," once said good old 
' Father ' Balfour, "and allow their children to sleep with 
them, it is easy to see what work is preparing for the next 
generation. They ought to see to it that Universalists in 
name be also Christians, able and williDg to defend from 
the Scriptures what they believe. There, can be no safety 
from controversy until Christians are correctly and gen- 
erally instructed in the Bible, for so long as ignorance of it 
prevails, there will always be those who will impose on the 
ignorant " — and, he might have added, lead astray the 
unwary. There is a meaning in these words of the dear 
old patriarch, to which no Universalist should fail to give 
heed. 

The Bible, indeed, is to be studied by us, or taught to 
others, in no narrow, dogmatic, or merely sectarian spirit. 
We want no idolatry of the Bible. We are not to be big- 
ots, — though better bigotry than latitudinarianism and in- 
difference ; nor are we to do anything to make others big^ 
ots. We are not to look on the Bible as God's only revela- 
tion, — only as His most distinct and authoritative revela^ 
tion. We are never to go to it, to put a meaning into it, — 
only to get its meaning out of it. Especially are we never 



172 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

to forget that the Bible is not to be fouud in texts, sewed 
together like patchwork, or repeated as a parrot jingles 
what it has learned. The meaning of the Bible is the Bible, 
— not its mere letter. And one who constantly studies to 
reach the spirit of the Bible pays it far higher reverence 
than one who thinks only of its language, and deals with 
its words as a child deals with its bits of calico, or painted 
glass : — just as he is the Bible preacher who is most anx- 
ious, not to quote texts, or to say what he says in Bible 
terms, but to unfold Bible thought and preach Bible truth. 

There are those who would have us believe that the Bible 
is to pass away from the authoritative place it has held, — 
as there are those who are fearing that it will suffer harm 
from the attacks made upon it. Pass away ! Suffer harm ! 
As well might one talk of the North Star's passing away 
from its place in the heavens, or of its suffering harm be- 
cause a telescope is occasionally levelled at it. The Bible 
is a necessity and a fact, buttressed as well as demanded 
by every moral and religious need of the human soul. It 
is no gourd that grew up yesterday. It is the legacy of 
ages. It comes down to us, portions of it, from periods 
more remote than are reported by any other written page. 
It has seen empires rise and fall, and become forgotten. It 
has seen splendid cities built, whose very places have been 
lost to human recognition. Nor has it thus survived be- 
cause it has had no enmity, or assaults, to encounter. It 
has had battles to fight that were battles — battles with 
learning, and superstition, and cunning, and ignorance ; 
battles, especially, as one has well expressed it, "with men 
of culture, shrewdness, and force, compared with whom 
most of those who now assail it are, in every respect save 
a reckless daring, mere Lilliputians in presence of the men 
of Brobdignag.' 7 The Alleghanies will not be moved at 
present, however children may pelt them with pebbles, or 
discharge their mimic cannon against them, nor even 
though men should be found to vote them only so much 
vapor, or to pass wise resolves that they are nothing but 
sand. There they are ; — and there, doubtless, however a 
stone may be occasionally hacked from their sides, they 
will stand, to invite generations yet unborn to the refresh- 



THE BIBLE. , 173 

ment of their breezes, and to the sublime beauty of the, 
scenery they present, and to enrich those who mine them 
with the inexhaustible stores of wealth God has provided 
in them. And so with the Bible. Here and there, there 
may be those captivated by a pretentious philosophy, or 
led away by doubt and a presumptuous egoism, or jumping 
in the name of science to unwarranted conclusions, who 
may renounce their faith in it ; and in the progress of crit- 
icism, here and there an interpolation may be discovered, 
and an excrescence be cut off. But so long as it can point 
to the civilization it has reared and vitalized, — so long as 
it has an advocate and witness in every necessity of our 
nature, pleading for its satisfactions, — so long as it fills 
the place in its relations to the life of souls and the prog- 
ress of the world which it always has filled, and which it 
alone can fill, the Bible will stand — the record of God's 
living Word ; the store-house of the unspeakable riches of 
His grace and truth ; the lens through which light from 
Heaven shines upon us ; the perpetual source of inspira- 
tion and redeeming power. 

The dear old Bible ! so consecrated as the gift of God, 
and as the memorial of prophets and apostles through 
whom He has spoken, — so hallowed by all the associations 
and uses of ages, — so fragrant with the aroma of the 
heroic and saintly lives it has formed and fed, — so 
anointed with the tears of sufferers it has sustained and 
soothed, and with the blood of martyrs who have folded it 
to their bosoms, and gone to the rack and the stake in its 
behalf, — the Book out of which have come the doctrine of 
human rights and every principle of free government, — 
from which Sorrow has drank, and been comforted, — into 
which Bereavement has looked, and seen the light that 
never grows dim, and read the promise of re-union, — to 
which Sin has come, and been cleansed, — against which 
the tempted have leaned, and found strength, and clasping 
which the dying have gone down into the dark valley, 
walking in the radiance of an Immortal Life ! — oh, fathers 
and mothers, — oh, young men and maidens, — oh, children, 
lambs in the flock of the Good Shepherd whose Gospel it 
brings us, shall it not be dear to us ? Will we not carry it 



174 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

closer than ever before to our hearts, and, feeling the life 
of God pulsating through it, seek to take into our inmost 
being all that it aims to communicate, that we may be daily 
wiser and stronger and more efficient for Christian Work, 
as well as richer in all sweet and blessed experience ? And 
will we not thus, one and all, give ourselves to the New 
Departure herein pleaded for, that, because of our increased 
study and knowledge of the Bible, our truth may shine out 
more and more as indeed the very doctrine of its sacred 
pages, and our Church, irresistible in the demonstration of 
the Spirit thus imparted, and vivified by an increasing spir- 
ituality and consecration, become the living and mighty 
instrument of God for the work He has appointed it ? 



CHAPTER XII. 

PRAYER. 

It was remarked in our second chapter that we are not a 
praying people, in the sense in which this phrase is com- 
monly employed ; that is, that the custom of family, social, 
or stated private prayer, does not, to any considerable ex- 
tent, prevail among us, for the reason that there is no pre- 
vailing sense of duty in these directions. I should be 
heartily glad if the facts were otherwise ; but no one famil- 
iar with our history will venture to say that the statement 
is not true. Many causes have contributed to make it 
true, most of which have been sufficiently set forth in pre- 
ceding- pages, especially in our Survey of the Field, and 
in the opening of the chapter on Experimental Religion. 
Prayer is one of the conditions and helps of experimental 
religion. It naturally shared, therefore, in the cheapening 
and neglect of this whole side of the Christian life conse- 
quent upon the disgust of our fathers at the pietistic cant 
and formalism of their time, and their inevitable reaction 
from them. Nor should it fail to be noted in this connec- 
tion that, so constantly appealing to reason as for so many 
years we were, in our battle against the creeds, the habit 
into which we thus fell of rationalizing and philosophizing 
about everything led to a much too exclusively intellectual 
interpretation of religion, and particularly to speculations 
as to how prayer can be of use, not at all conducive to a 
prayerful frame of soul. 

The result was precisely what might have been expected. 
With a view of God and an interpretation of Christianity 
which should have so stirred our hearts as to make us the 
most devout and prayerful of all Christians, we became, not 
undevout in the sense of indifference to religion, as religion 
was understood, but of all Christians probably, among those 
least given to any signs of religious emotion, and least ad- 

175 



176 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

dieted to the habit of prayer. Since I entered the ministry, 
it was not usual to find family prayer even in the homes of 
our ministers, while a family altar in a Universalist lay- 
man's home was a thing almost unheard of. The home in 
which I was reared — reared most tenderly and carefully — 
was a fair type of the best Universalist homes in this re- 
spect, my mother being a church-member, of devout mind 
and heart, and my father, though not a church-member, a 
most upright and scrupulously conscientious man, whom, to 
the last, nothing but serious illness could keep from his 
place at church, so long as he could get there. The chil- 
dren were trained to revere and read the Bible, to honor the 
Sabbath, to love and practise goodness, and to ' go to meet- 
ing ; with punctilious regularity. But — saving that we 
children, in our earliest days, were taught to ' say our 
prayers ; every night on going to our pillows — the voice 
of prayer was never heard in our home, except when the 
minister was with us to ' say grace J at table. And this, so 
far as my knowledge extended, was the universal rule 
among us as a people. Things have changed for the better 
with us, in this as in many other particulars, during these 
later years. We have grown much in devoutness of spirit, 
and in those habits of prayerfulness in which such a spirit 
most naturally expresses itself. We are yet, however, very 
far from having outgrown these early traditions and reac- 
tionary ideas — so that, were our census taken to-day, family 
altars would still be found much too rare, and more minis- 
ters' homes even would probably be reported as without a 
daily religious service than we should wish to see frankly 
stated to the world. 

Without going into further detail to show why, then, I 
am confident no serious-minded person will dispute the as- 
sertion that, among our most pressing needs, is the need of 
a New Departure in respect to Prayer — i. e. it being con- 
ceded that prayer is ever of any real use. This, of course, 
is the previous question ; but it is not a question with those 
who will read what is here written, or for whom it is spe- 
cially intended. With them, the propriety of prayer — at 
least to some extent — is not open to debate. They would 
not see it dispensed with in our Sabbath services, at the 



PRAYER. 177 

marriage altar, in the chamber of the sick, or at the burial 
of the dead. They not only recognize, but, if need be, 
would insist upon, its fitness on these and various special 
occasions. The basis on which this chapter proceeds is 
thus fully conceded. For if we should pray at all, it can 
only be because there is, for some reason, use and power in 
prayer. What mummery all praying is if so much as this 
be not true I And if there be use or power in praying at 
all, then the more we have of prayer of the right sort, 
under suitable circumstances, the larger the measure of use 
it will serve, — the greater the degree of power it will 
impart. Public prayer being well, then why not private 
prayer ? If prayer in the church, why not in the home ? 
if prayer in the pulpit, why not in the closet ? if prayer on 
special occasions, why not as the habit of life? By so 
much as it is ever of service anywhere, in any way, they 
clearly are losers who neglect it. And if we have not here- 
tofore sufficiently considered these things, — as it is certain 
we have not, and therefore have neglected to avail ourselves 
as we might have done of this means of spiritual culture 
and spiritual power, what can be plainer than that we 
should hereafter, in a New Departure, more largely and 
wisely employ it ? 

It must be confessed that the question, How is Prayer of 
use ? is the perplexing one in respect to this subject. Be- 
cause of the embarrassment this occasions them, some who 
try more or less to believe in prayer — speaking now with- 
out reference to church lines or names — do not believe 
nearly as strongly as they desire ; while many others who 
would be glad to believe do not believe in it at all. The 
question, it is true, is one often asked in a trifling or sneer- 
ing way by those without any sincerity or earnestness of 
thought concerning the subject, and who have no purpose 
except to throw contempt or ridicule upon it. So asked, 
the question deserves no reply. But others ask it with 
sincere concern ; and it is a question that can scarcely fail 
to urge itself at some time upon every reflecting mind, how- 
ever devout. God, the reasoning is, is unchangeable ; the 
laws of nature are established ; and neither He, in His feel- 
ings or plans, nor nature in its course, is to be affected or 
12 



178 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

changed by any pleadings or wishes of ours. How, then, 
can prayer find any actual hearing, or avail to bring us any- 
thing different from what we should have or experience 
without it ? The question is one the complete answer of 
which involves elements necessarily beyond our comprehen- 
sion. It belongs, moreover, to the metaphysical rather than 
to the practical side of the subject, and so does not fall 
properly within the particular design of these pages. And 
yet, considering the peculiar nature and importance of the 
point, I cannot forbear a few words of suggestion concern- 
ing it. 

There is a view of the subject which seeks to avoid the 
difficulty this question, How ? presents, by affecting to 
affirm the use of prayer, and at the same time alleging that 
it avails nothing with God, — only does us good on the same 
principle that religious meditation serves to strengthen, 
soothe and uplift us. This theory has found some advocates 
among us. But it seems to me — and I think I may say, to 
nearly all of us — a theory most unsatisfactory, and every 
way open to objection. No really devout mind can fail in- 
stinctively to shrink from it, and protest against it. Not 
only does it deny the Psalmist's statement that God heareth 
prayer, — i. e. hears in some sympathizing and responsive 
sense, — and equally deny Christ's repeated assurances to 
the same effect, but it makes prayer a travesty of devotion 
as actually as though there were no God. The essence of 
prayer, as prayer, is earnest and sincere asking, in the ex- 
pectation of somehow receiving. But, on this theory, any 
such asking is impossible. This theory being true, one 
might as well kneel before a post or a brick wall, and talk 
to it, expecting it to bestow something, — might as well 
address himself to the name of God, believing there is no 
such Being, — as to call on God, expecting to receive 
anything from Him; Christ's precious words of promise, 
"Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, 
and it shall be opened unto you," convey an implication 
that imposes a lie upon us ; and every time God is ad- 
dressed in the attitude and words of prayer, as if He 
heard and answered, a hollow pretence is acted that, were 
it not so impious, would justify a smile because it is so ludi- 



PRAYER. 179 

crous. It is as if a child, wishing for some gift, should 
solemnly kneel and call on its mother to give, knowing that 
she is a thousand miles away, and can neither hear nor re- 
spond ! Or, still more like perhaps, it is as if one, desiring 
to scale a mountain, should stand in a basket, trying to lift 
himself by going through the motions of pulling at a rope 
which he knows does not exist, but which he plays is dan- 
gling from the sky and fastened to the basket, all the while 
invoking the aid of some deaf or helpless friend ! One at 
all realizing what such a view implies would find any heart 
or earnestness in prayer impossible, or if, going through its 
form in a momentary glow of devotional feeling, he should 
be suddenly struck with a becoming sense of what he was 
doing, would inevitably collapse in laughter, or sink to the 
ground, unspeakably shocked at the mockery in which he 
was engaged. "He that cometh to God," it is written, 
"must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of 
them that diligently seek Him ; " and there is, and can be, 
no prayer except as, in accordance with this, the soul call- 
ing on God feels that His ear is open to it, and that, in 
some way, its aspirations and requests will have response 
from Him. 

What, then, are we to say to this question, How ? In 
effect, as the subject presents itself to my thought, some- 
thing like this : that neither God's unchangeability, nor the 
established course of nature, renders it either impossible, 
unreasonable, or improbable that blessings are given in 
answer to prayer which are not to be had without it. There 
are blessings which come to us without any use of means 
on our part ; but there are others — among them, most of 
those that are of special importance — which we can have 
only through our own action. This is undeniably a part of 
the plan on which the world is governed, as is seen in the 
relation of sowing to reaping in the natural world, and in 
the equally apparent relation of effects to causes every- 
where. Does our sowing of seed, or our active efforts 
towards any desirable end, involve or imply any change of 
God's plans or feelings, or any interruption of the order of 
nature, as a condition of the result we seek ? Why, then, 
is any such change or interruption necessarily implied in the 



180 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

supposition of answers to prayer ? Rather, considering who 
and what God is in His relations to us, if there really be a 
God, is not every presumption in favor of the supposition 
that in this grand system of means, on our use of which 
life's best things depend, prayer is one ? Spiritual blessings 
are the most legitimate objects of prayer ; and it seems to 
me easy to see the connection between them and prayer as 
the means of obtaining them. And, though it may not be 
so easy to detect the precise connection between our petitions 
and what we pray for when we supplicate for the sick, the sin- 
ful, or the absent, or ask for health, or pray to be shielded from 
danger, or to be prospered in our undertakings, it is not diffi- 
cult to conceive that God may have so arranged the possible 
relations and dependence of events as to be able to respond 
to such prayers when earnestly and believingly offered, with- 
out any change of feeling, or any violence to nature, or 
His own wise ways. 

This subject, unfortunately, is one concerning which 
thought is quite too much merely superficial and mechanical, 
in its conception of God and His methods. It is important 
that we should duly keep in mind the fact of man's freedom ; 
but it is even more important that we should take care not 
to overlook or compromise the grander fact of God's free- 
dom. Because this fact fails to be properly taken into 
account, there is, in the habits of thinking quite too widely 
prevalent touching this whole matter of God's connection 
with us, not a little virtual Atheism. We hear a great deal 
about the laws of nature, and the established chain of causa- 
tion, and the inviolable order of things ; and there are those 
who never weary in insisting that it is not at all probable 
that this machine-like fixity and succession of events ever 
has been, or ever will be, intermitted in answer to anybody's 
prayers. We have heard of the proposed 'test of prayer.' 
We have become familiar with the loud and confident 
loquacity of what calls itself ' Science,' about the super- 
stition and folly of those who still cherish any faith in 
prayer, or its possible efficacy. And let it be confessed 
that, amidst much that offends and shocks, some things are 
said by those who indulge in these diversions which are 
worth considering. But, whatever the terms employed, — 



PRAYER. 181 

whatever the point from which the debate or denunciation 
proceeds, what have we, when we get at the bottom of all 
these discussions and tirades, but this as their final substance 
and real meaning — that God, if there be a God, is, practically, 
the slave of His own appointments, or of co-ordinate 
' natural laws/ because they everywhere master, restrain, 
or hedge Him in ? If the despotically naturalistic, or 
' scientific ' view of the universe so pretentiously urged 
recognizes God at all as an actual element in human life, 
it is only remotely and indirectly. In effect, He is utterly 
excluded. No place is left for His vital presence, for the 
■exercise of His instant and solicitous care, or for the play 
of His immediate mercy in our concerns. And what is this 
but a modified Atheism? Atheism only tells us that there 
is no God ; and why might we not just as well go to this 
extent, so far as all our present or personal interests are 
involved, as to believe that if there be a God, He is nothing, 
immediately, to us, and has, directly, no hand in our affairs ? 

I will not here assume to speak for others ; but for myself, 
I am free to say, my intellect and my affections alike revolt 
from such an approach to Atheism, in such an expulsion of 
God from our daily life and interests. I believe in Law, and 
see abundant occasion to thank God that what we call His laws 
are so uniform and reliable in their operations. But I believe 
in no Law paramount to Almighty God. Either He is above 
all Law, except the law of honor and right, or He is not 
God. I do not believe in a God whose hands are hampered, 
whose volitions are hindered, whose living presence is caged 
behind any Law, or any set of Laws, existing by His ordi- 
nance, or otherwise. The God to whom my reason conducts 
me, that my heart yearns for, and that Nature and Providence 
and the Bible, as I interpret them, give me, is — not a cold 
and distant Sovereign, who deals with me at second-hand,, 
through the unsympathizing mechanism which He has set 
to running and then retired, but a Father, numbering the 
very hairs of my head ; without whose notice not even a 
sparrow falls, and who, near me always, is constantly and 
tenderly immanent in my life and in all lives for good. 

Laws, do you say ? What, finally, are these ' laws of 
nature ; of which we hear so much, and of which we should 



182 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

never fail to make due account, — forces and processes 
independent of God, or the methods in which He works ? 
" rigid statutes, or flexible expressions of the Infinite Will " ? 
As it has been well asked, " What informs and controls 
them? Is it the mechanical obedience of springs and 
wheels and repulsive and attractive forces ? or is it the 
instant and universal presence of Divine Intelligence, Love, 
and Power ? ;; If the latter, then there is no such thing as 
a mechanical, general Providence, with a Deity withdrawn 
from Life, content to look on with folded hands and see the 
great clock-work go on as He has arranged and wound it 
up. All Providence is special, and God's relations to the 
world and to us are direct and immediate. He is "instant 
as well as constant v everywhere. The universe is vital 
with His presence. Planets move and systems revolve in the 
grasp of His hand, and the events of history and the 
experiences of life transpire in the sight of His eye, to be 
overruled and used as He sees best. Laws, in the sense of 
fixed methods, there are ; order there is ; but it is ' law and 
order ' that, instead of excluding Him, only shows us what 
He is doing — where and how His all-pervading and marvel- 
lous energy ordinarily expends itself, admitting any other 
manifestation of His will and work whenever, for any reason, 
it may seem to Him good. 

These observations are made with no idea of offering them 
as a thorough discussion of the question they touch, but 
simply by way of suggestion — to hint that a philosophical, 
and even '- scientific/ explanation may be given of the use 
of prayer, implying no change in God, or violent interrup- 
tion of the course of nature. For if there be any force in 
these considerations — and how can there be a free, self- 
acting, immanent God unless there is force in them ? — God, 
they show us, if He sees reason to do so, can " give direct 
answer to our prayer — that answer being, not a violation 
of, or a departure from, the laws of nature, — only one of 
the legitimate results and manifestations of these laws." 

After all, however, our faith in prayer must rest, finally, 
on other than any grounds of mere reasoning, or it will not 
be very strong. Philosophize as we may, there are still 



PRAYER. 183 

questions concerning it — as concerning numerous other 
facts, not only in religion, but in science and the phenomena 
of nature — easy to ask, but impossible of human answer. 
These other facts, however, are none the less accepted, though 
we cannot answer all possible questions concerning them. 
Who the less believes in God because, in so many respects, 
a curious and speculative reason searches in vain to find 
Him out ? Or who the less concedes the reality of the rain- 
bow, or the gorgeous scintillations of the aurora borealis, 
because every link in the chain of their causation cannot be 
mathematically described ? It is, therefore, nothing to the 
discredit of prayer though we have to grant, as we must 
after all our theorizing about it, that its innermost philosophy 
belongs to the domain of infinite and not of finite thought, 
and that our confidence in its efficacy must rest, at last, on 
something firmer than any mere argument concerning it, and 
deeper than any ability of ours to explain it. In granting 
this, we simply say that prayer belongs in the same category 
as all these other facts, and that faith in it is not so much a 
matter of reason, or of science, as it is of intuition, experi- 
ence and actual demonstration. 

While, then, it is well for us to give some consideration 
to the question, How is prayer of use ? it is not the part 
of wisdom for us to perplex ourselves, or to allow ourselves 
to be perplexed, with inquisitive speculations about it. It 
is enough that prayer is of use, and that by an innate 
impulse, like that which impels the child to cling to the 
protection of its mother, we are moved, particularly in every 
season of deepest need and of highest moral consciousness, 
to avail ourselves of it. Here is the impregnable basis for 
faith in prayer. Prayer, in some form, is an instinct of our 
nature. Every religious sentiment prompts it. Everything 
in the shape of religious instruction enjoins it. The Bible, 
especially, is full of injunctions, urging it as a duty, as well 
as of declarations and promises, assuring us of its power. 
Unless, then, our nature is mocking us by suggesting what 
is only a farce, and unless the Bible is dealing falsely with 
us, and all the noblest lives it records and that are elsewhere 
recorded are fitted only to deceive us, prayer is not simply 
an instinct, but a duty, a privilege and a means to important 
ends not otherwise to be attained. 



184 



OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 



On this basis we are to stand, "continuing instant in 
prayer," whatever the questions we can ask but cannot 
answer concerning it, assured that " the effectual, fervent 
prayer . . . availeth much. 7 ' Much good is lost to us 
because of a too curious disposition to inquire and specu- 
late about the rationale of things — as if one should stand 
before a rosebush, and decline to pluck a flower, or to enjoy 
the fragrance, until he can tell exactly how the flower 
grows, and how its perfume comes. It is so with many 
persons, particularly in this matter of prayer. As some 
one has well said, "Philosophy asks a reason for the effi- 
cacy of prayer, and, waiting for an answer, never prays at 
all. Keligion, wiser, hears that God will be inquired of by 
us, thankfully bends the knee, and bears away the bless- 
ing.' 7 There are not lacking numerous facts which serve 
to show that prayer may avail, even in respect to the res- 
toration of health, the relief of hunger, the conversion of 
the wayward, and the whole class of blessings to which 
these belong. John Murray's Life furnishes several inci- 
dents that point strongly in this direction ; and a multitude 
of examples of the same nature, and of great interest, might 
be gathered from the fields of history and biography. Nor, 
though some choose to sneer at it as a piece of charlatanry, 
is the case of George Muller, and the work he has done, 
without very serious claims on our consideration in this 
connection. Not to affirm anything positively in respect to 
this side of the subject, however, — for the reason, I am 
frank to confess, that it is not altogether clear to my own 
mind precisely how much is to be affirmed, — it is enough 
now to say that, as regards all our moral and spiritual inter- 
ests, — as regards religious strength and growth and peace, 
and all that most concerns us as souls, — prayer is not only 
an irrepressible instinct in every hour of exposure, suffering, 
or grateful emotion, but has effectually demonstrated its use 
in the results that have followed it ever since man first 
poured his petitions into the ear of God. 

Let it be admitted that there are those who pray who 
seem to be in no way benefited by their prayers. But say- 
ing the words of prayer is not praying. There are hypo- 
crites in prayer, as in every other good thing. There are 



PRAYEK. 185 

those, too, who pray only prayers of custom, necessity, or 
form — not hypocritical prayers, but perfunctory prayers, 
in which there is no earnestness, no vitality, no soul, — 
mere drudgery in the way of spiritual exercise. We can- 
not tell, indeed, how much worse those would be who thus 
pray without becoming any better, if they did not pray after 
this poor fashion ; but it is the one sufficient answer to all 
such seeming instances of the inutility of prayer, that it is 
the prayer, not of the hypocrite, or of the formalist, but of 
the devout and earnest soul, to which the promise is given, 
and the effect of which we must observe if we would test 
the use of prayer. 

And, thus judged, what is the verdict concerning the effi- 
cacy of prayer ? Who have been the world's noblest work- 
ers, — the world's most triumphant sufferers, — the world's 
grandest heroes, — the world's most robust and impressive 
examples of virtue ? Who but those who have been made 
so by the helpful and uplifting power of prayer ? And, 
through the ages, among all those who have prayed as a 
child throws itself upon the bosom of its mother, clasping 
God's hand, and reposing their heads on His breast in love 
and trust and holy communion, desiring His grace and bless- 
ing, where can one be found of whom it can be said, Here 
is a man or woman who derived no good from prayer ? 
What would Abraham, or Moses, or Samuel, or David, or 
Isaiah have been without prayer ? What would John, or 
Paul, or Peter have been without prayer ? Without prayer, 
where would have been the character and achievements 
which we now venerate in any of the sainted souls who 
shine as suns and stars in the moral firmament of history ? 
Nay, without prayer, how could he who stands before us in 
the life so beautiful and yet so sublime, towering so far 
above all merely human excellence, have been the Christ he 
was ? It is to such examples that those should look who 
cite the fact that hypocrites and formalists pray, and seem- 
ingly pray in vain, to prove that it does no good to pray. 
These are God's demonstrations that there is good in ear- 
nest, real prayer ; God's witnesses that whoever asks re- 
ceives ; the providential confirmations of His fidelity to His 
promise, that no soul sincerely seeking good from Him shall 
be turned away empty. 



186 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

To these and similar examples, then, all who have any- 
moral earnestness, desiring to grow better themselves, and 
to see the Church of Christ, of any and of all names, be- 
coming mightier for its conflict with evil, should put them- 
selves to school. Reasoning and speculating, the theory of 
the subject may not be as transparent to us, in its depths, 
as we would be glad to see it ; but these examples make 
the facts undeniable and clear. Better than the most subtile 
philosophy, more convincing than the ablest argument, they 
are the practical proofs that it is not useless to pray. 
Prayer, they certify us, is the medium through which God 
comes nearest to us, pouring most of himself into our being. 
As the hymn well says, — 

" Prayer is the Christian's vital breath, — 
The Christian's native air, — 
The watchword at the gate of death ; 
He enters heaven by prayer." 

Or, as another hymn says, — 

"Restraining prayer, we cease to fight; 
Prayer keeps the Christian's armor bright." 

Prayer is the nutriment of faith ; the inspiration to endeav- 
or ; the means of consolation in sorrow ; the ladder of 
Jacob, on which we climb into higher light, into a riper 
character, into a sweeter peace. In proportion as prayer 
is neglected, religious interest decays ; all the elements of 
Christian experience wither ; its best resources fail. World- 
liness supplants thoughtfulness and devotion. The richest 
graces of the Christian life languish. The lethargy of in- 
difference steals over the soul. Spiritual death ensues, and 
there is necessarily an utter lack of spiritual power. On 
the other hand, in proportion as we pray, every moral pur- 
pose is strengthened. God's presence is felt. Christ's 
preciousness is understood. Immortality becomes more 
real. Every spiritual resource is augmented. Our faults 
and sins are mourned with more poignant feeling, and con- 
quered in a completer victory. More and more, we are 
made vital with the life of God, and, in harmony with Him, 
attain on earth something of heaven. 

True, we often ask for what we do not receive ; and, as 



PRAYER. 187 

often as we do, those who disparage prayer eagerly exclaim, 
There, see how futile all your praying is ! But not so. 
With every prayer we offer, if we pray aright, whatever 
the special thing for which we plead, we pray for a clearer 
knowledge of God, for a deeper sense of His loving pres- 
ence, for a trust and reconciliation more entire, for grace 
and fortitude to bear whatever may be appointed us, saying 
always, " Thy will, not ours, be done." Grant, then, that 
the specific thing for which we plead is not bestowed, — 
that the calamity or misfortune we would be spared comes, 
— that the good we crave is denied : if through our prayer, 
and because of it, we attain a higher frame of soul, be- 
coming calmer, more self-possessed, stronger to bear the 
cross, or to pass through the trial, does not our prayer 
prove effectual, and vindicate its worth, notwithstanding ? 
Though one request is denied, another — and, if we have 
faith in God, we must believe, that which, under the cir- 
cumstances, is best for us — is granted. Thus it was with 
Christ. His whole life was a prayer, and the record tells 
us, especially, how he prayed and even agonized in Geth- 
semane. His sensitive nature shrank from the terrible or- 
deal before him, — from the buffetings of the judgment-hall 
and the tortures of the cross. And so he prayed, " Father, 
if it be possible, let this cup pass from me ; nevertheless, 
not as I will, but as Thou wilt." Over and over again, he 
prayed that prayer. But it was not granted. The cup 
from which he so recoiled did not pass from him. For our 
sake, he drained it to its dregs. But was his prayer, there- 
fore, in vain ? Who will say so ? God's will was done ; 
and as it was done, through that prayer there came to the 
tried and shrinking soul of the sufferer a sense of God, and 
a serene submission to His will, which enabled him to take 
up his cross and go trustfully to his death, making the 
mount of agony the throne of triumph. 

And so prayer always proves effectual, when offered in 
the right spirit — if not in one way, then in another. Stand- 
ing at the entrance of some path of trial, which we shrink 
from entering, we may ask to be saved from the necessity 
of walking there ; — bending above the bed of some dear 
child or friend, we may plead that the life so precious may 



188 OUll NEW DEPARTURE. 

be continued ; — amidst our honorable struggles for success, 
we may ask God to prosper us ; — bowed with disease, 
racked with pain, suffering in poverty, we may pray for the 
relief we yearn for, 'and, as in Christ's case when he so be- 
sought that his cup might pass from him, our request may 
not be granted. But if, in that spirit of trust and submis- 
sion which he exhibited, and which is of the very essence 
of all true prayer, our petitions have gone up to the Father, 
they shall bring us, though not the thing which was the bur- 
den of our request, yet such help and strength as will show 
that His ear is not closed, nor His hand withheld. Through 
that path of trial we shall be able to walk patient, resigned, 
serene. Above the cold form of the dear one we would 
have retained, we shall be aided to stand, and fold the cold 
hands across the breast as cold, and smooth the hair above 
the brow we have kissed, and take the last look at the face 
that has so often and so tenderly been pressed to ours, and 
through it all, though our eyes are full of tears and our 
heart is aching with the terrible sense of its loss, we shall 
see the light of heaven making the grave beautiful, and feel 
God's support, and rejoice in the grace that is sufficient for 
us. Amidst our disappointed plans and our wrecked hopes, 
we shall still look up, rejoicing that God is over all ; and, 
though languishing in sick rooms, and turning uneasily in 
our pain, we shall find that, through the sweetness of our 
converse with Him, God's ministering angels are visiting 
us, and that courage and trust are given to endure what we 
would escape, but cannot. 

And these, and such as these, are the effectual answers to 
prayer, which make it most a privilege and best attest its 
use. It is permitted us to go to God in the freedom of 
filial confidence, asking for what we will, if we but ask in 
submission to His wise and holy pleasure ; but the blessings 
which enrich, enlarge, and fortify the soul, lifting us towards 
God and making us more perfectly His children — vigor of 
moral purpose ; the sense of nearness and acceptance ; the 
experience of Divine support ; strength in weakness ; com- 
fort in the hour of affliction ; light in darkness ; victory over 
our hinderances and our sins, — the blessings which keep us 
in fresh and constant contact with spiritual realities, and thus 



PRAYER. 189 

give ns increasing power and unction from on high — these 
are the blessings most desirable, and which, sincerely offered, 
prayer never fails to bring. No matter how, or when, or 
where we pray, if we truly pray, down through the windows of 
heaven which our prayers, ascending, have opened, God will 
shed these gifts upon us, so proving the efficacy of prayer, 
according to the measure of our faith, the earnestness of 
our purpose, the submissiveness of our spirit, the continuous- 
ness of our supplications. 

Profoundly convinced of the truth of these several state- 
ments, and as profoundly convinced, therefore, of the incal- 
culable importance of this subject to all, and to none more 
than to us as individuals and as a Church, I urge it, with 
the intensest emphasis I can command, upon the serious 
consideration of every Universalist to whom these pages 
come. Are you, whose eyes are now resting on these words, 
a praying man or woman ? If the head of a family, have 
you a family altar, at which, every day, God's word is read, 
and His name honored, and His love praised ? If a father, 
or a mother, are you training your children to daily com- 
munion with God, and seeking thus to fill your home with 
the atmosphere of religious thoughtfulness and devotion ? 
If a young man, or a young woman, are you realizing your 
exposures and your needs, and, every morning or evening, 
going to the Source of light and strength for the guidance 
and support you require ? Young, middle-aged, or old, 
whatever your position or relations, have you your closet 
and your hour of prayer ? And are you thus endeavoring 
to fulfil the deepest requirements of your own personal life, 
and, so far as your influence can go, to make our Church 
vital with the spiritual effluence that prayer alone invokes, 
and mighty with the power that only prayer can give ? If so, 
pray on, growing more and more fervid and earnest. If not, 
let me plead with you, if you have any actual interest in re- 
ligion, and wish to have more, — if on your conscience 
presses, or begins to press, any sense of your religious 
needs, or obligations, — if the story of Christ's life and 
death awakens any concern in your heart, and you have any 
love for him or his Gospel, or any desire to help on his 
kingdom in the conversion of souls, or in your own growth 



190 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

— or in the growth of your children, if you have any — in 
his discipleship, feel what prayer is, and henceforth give your- 
self to it. If our Lord himself felt the need of prayer, and 
saw it important that he should use it as a means of further- 
ing his kingdom, who of us is superior to the necessity 
which he thus confessed, or, avowing faith in the truth he 
taught, should be unwilling to employ the same means to 
the same great end ? 

Especially would I plead with those having children under 
their charge, to reflect upon this subject. We defraud our 
children of an important element in the preparation for life, 
when we fail to make prayer and every means of religious 
impression a part of their education. A thoughtful and sen- 
sitive child — now a young lady — some years ago read 
" Home Influence," and, talking with friends in presence of 
her parents about its story of the power of family prayer, 
supplemented by a consistent religious example, to chasten 
and hallow the lives of children, sadly said, " We have no 
such influence in our home, mother." Who can tell how 
much she was surprised and shocked at the contrast she 
thus noted, or how much was lost to her life because her 
home had been without, this influence ? Quite of another 
sort was the remark of a young woman — a wife and a 
mother — far away from the home of her childhood, who, 
writing on her birthday to her mother, said, " On every 
birthday that comes to me now away from you, I do so 
miss father's morning prayer, asking God's care over me 
for another year ! It always gave me a sense of blessedness 
to carry through the year, and the feeling that God took me 
anew under His guiding hand." Can there be any doubt 
what family prayer had been as an element in her life ? Or, 
with these two instances before us, — samples of numberless 
similar cases, — can there be any difference of opinion among 
thoughtful minds as to which did most for those in it — the 
home that had no influence of prayer, or the home that had ? 
0, if every Universalist home could but have its altar, and 
every Universalist believer his or her closet and hours of 
prayer, and our whole Church could but be pervaded by the 
new life and the fruits of Divine communion which would 
thus come to us, what a kindling there would be among us, 



PRAYER. 191 

and how the world would feel the glow and the impulse we 
should impart ! 

Let no one say that because 

" Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, 
Uttered, or unexpressed," 

no words, or set times, are necessary ; that every good 
wish is praying ; and that whoever, at any time, or any- 
where, thinks of God, or is moved by a devout thought or 
feeling towards Him, prays sufficiently for all practical pur- 
poses. This, for the most part, is the talk of those who have 
little faith in prayer, or who seldom or never pray — as the 
like talk that we can worship anywhere as well as in the 
House of Worship comes usually from those who seldom or 
never worship at all. It is talk that has never helped any- 
body, but has made many a life prayerless, and many a soul 
empty, and many a church, or congregation, a corpse. 
True, God can be worshipped anywhere ; but, as the rule, 
He is worshipped only by those who have nurtured them- 
selves, or been nurtured by others, in the mood and habit 
of worshipping in the place consecrated to this purpose. So 
there may be prayer, or converse with God, without words ; 
and some of the sweetest hours in every religious experience 
are those when, with no petition on the lips, — with scarcely 
a distinct thought, except the thought of God, in the mind, — 
one becomes absorbed in ecstatic communion with the Divine 
Father, as two hearts, with no need of words, sometimes in- 
terfuse themselves into each other, feeling the flow of a 
subtile and delicious sympathy that, in its supreme and elec- 
tric blessedness, would rather be jarred and broken than 
helped by any language which speech could frame. But 
these are exceptional seasons, alike in the relations of hearts 
to each other, and in the relations of souls to God. Ordi- 
narily, words are needed if friends, however much in sympa- 
thy, are to be put into communication ; and by a similar 
necessity, if souls are to hold intercourse with God, and 
prayer is really and availingly to be made, there must be 
set times for it, and we must accustom ourselves to put our 
requests into fit and articulate speech. Christ gave us 
words, saying, " After this manner pray ye : " shall we 



192 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

treat them as worthless ? He put his own prayers into 
speech : are we more independent of it than he ? He had 
his seasons for prayer : have we no occasion for what he 
thus required ? No doubt he had his hours of exaltation 
and voiceless communion ; but in this custom of spoken 
prayer, at stated times, as well as in the model he left, he 
indicated the law of necessity in the case. And it is for us 
to understand that the best results of prayer are not to be 
attained except as we comply with the conditions thus im- 
posed, for the reason that we cannot otherwise best fprm 
the habit of prayer, nor most distinctly frame our thoughts 
and petitions into the mould of prayer. 

As little does it avail for any one to sslj, I am diffident, 
or slow of speech, and shrink from attempting to lead in 
prayer, or find it impossible to command language, especial- 
ly in the presence of others. No doubt there are those 
who can plead one or both of these statements with truth. 
But the difficulty, in any case, is rather imaginary than real. 
In this as in other things, facility, usually, comes with prac- 
tice ; and there are Books of Prayer within reach of all, while 
self-command and practice are being acquired. The most 
diffident, or the slowest of speech, can at least read a chap- 
ter in the Bible, or unite with others in reading it, and 
then either lead, or have some one else lead, in prayer, 
using a book. It is only the will to pray, one's self, or 
to institute family prayer, that is, under any circumstances, 
wanted. This determined, everything else will, in some 
way, easily follow. So in respect to the excuse, As we are 
situated, we cannot find a time for family prayer. If hearts 
hunger for prayer, the time will be found. 

Prayer, it is true, does not fulfil all duty. Other things 
are important. Better a conscientious discharge of every 
moral obligation without prayer, so far as it is possible, than 
a life full of prayer and abounding in talk about religion, but 
empty of the evidence of a real regard for God or duty. 
Better homes in which the voice of prayer is never heard, 
if they are pervaded by a kindly and loving spirit, and a gen- 
eral endeavor to make them real homes by fidelity to every 
tender office, than homes with family prayer every night and 
morning, and filled with religious form and chatter, in which 
those who pray and profess to be devoted to religion make 



PRAYER. 193 

everybody uncomfortable by a morose or fractious temper, 
and by a general irreligiousness of manner and spirit. I 
once had a teacher who opened school every morning with 
a Bible-lesson and prayer ; and, frequently, hardly had he 
said, Amen, when he would angrily throw the Testament out 
of which he had just been reading, or something else near 
his hand, at some scholar whom, through his glasses while 
praying, he had seen inattentive or disorderly. Need it be 
said that his praying did not avail much to fill us with re- 
spect for religion ? So praying, anywhere, is only a bur- 
lesque of religion, doing more against than it can do for it, 
if there be not with it a temper, a manner, a general influ- 
ence in keeping with it, or at least a constant and manifest 
effort to put the substance of religion into character and 
daily life. But while all this is true as to the necessity of 
something besides prayer, it is also true that neither by in- 
dividuals, nor by a Church, are the best things to be attained 
except through prayer — fervent, intelligent, consistent prayer. 
This is the lesson that all churches and multitudes of no 
church have need to learn, and that none have more occa- 
sion than we, — that few have so much as we, to learn. 
What the world wants of us — the destiny that God is prof- 
fering us — is, that we shall be the revolutionizing, regen- 
erating, quickening Church of the Future, gathering into 
itself the choicest resources of spiritual influence, and send- 
ing out this influence for the salvation of our race. But we 
cannot be this except as we become more generally, and 
with increased fervor and unction, a praying people — with 
praying fathers and mothers in our homes ; with praying 
superintendents and teachers in our Sunday-schools ; with 
praying young men and young women in our congregations ; 
with praying ministers and members in our churches. 

Shall we not, then, have the New Departure we so much 
need in this respect ? Preach about it, brethren of the 
ministry. Talk about it, teachers in the Sunday-school. 
Enforce it as alike a privilege and a duty, by word and by 
example, believers all. Then shall a new day open for 
us, as, taking our New Departure, we become filled with a 
new impulse, and go forward with new energy, to larger 
and grander results. 
13 



CHAPTER XIII. 

OUR MINISTRY. 

Every army must have its leaders ; and as are the leaders, 
so, as the rule, will the army be. The ministers of a church 
are its leaders ; and no church, whatever else it may have, 
can be a live, enterprising, consecrated, growing church, ex- 
cept as it has live, enterprising, consecrated ministers, giv- 
ing themselves in Christ's spirit to the furtherance of its 
growth, through the conversion and enlistment of souls. 
We have had many such ministers ; and our history is fra- 
grant with their names and the influence of their labors. 
As I trace these lines, the faces of some such whom I have 
known, and of others who preceded them, shine out of the 
Past, and come clustering, a sacred and glorious ' cloud of 
witnesses/ about me : — Turner, Richards, and Hosea Bal- 
lou ; dear, saintly Dr. Ballou, one of the simplest, sweet- 
est, grandest souls that ever walked the earth ; Sebastian 
Streeter, S. R. Smith, and Otis Skinner ; Hanscom, so full 
of zeal and so early called ; Henry Bacon, John Boyden, 
and James W. Putnam — these are but part of the company. 
And only a little while ago, after a long and weary struggle 
with disease, another passed on to these faithful ones — 
Franklin Samuel Bliss, a man of no brilliant gifts, or con- 
spicuous position, and of many bodily infirmities ; but a 
man of faith and prayer, who, in spite of numerous phys- 
ical impediments, which most persons would have regarded 
as insuperable, gave himself to Christ, and the endeavor to 
lead others to him, with a sincerity and unction so impres- 
sive and a consecration so entire, — and loved our whole 
Church with a heart so large and warm, and a response so 
ready, — and supplemented all with a life so penetrated 
with the spirit and power of our faith, and therefore so 
pure and Christian, that his very feebleness became mighty, 
and the fields in which he toiled bore fruit in spiritual har- 

194 



OUR MINISTRY. 195 

vests which will long attest how effectually he wrought. 
Devoted and sainted one I with what pathos come to us 
who knew him and the limitations by which he was hin- 
dered, those words among his last, as he thought of the 
work God had for him to do on the other side, " I shall not 
be deaf or blind in heaven ; no weakness, no weariness 
there." Rather a thousand times would I choose the record 
of this humble, unpretending, comparatively obscure ser- 
vant of the Lord, as it stands in God's reckonings, than 
that of many another man of far greater- gifts and more 
commanding power and wider fame, but without his love for 
Christ and his zeal for souls. And we have had not a few 
such. The annals of any church may be searched in vain 
for ministers more apostolic, heroic, or saintly, or more 
worthy to be held up as models, than those who have thus 
honored our ministry, and helped to command respect and 
win success for our cause. 

But like others, we have had far too many of quite an- 
other class. Singularly fortunate we have been, consider- 
ing our circumstances, and how our ministry has been re- 
cruited, in respect to the immoralities which have so stained 
and stigmatized the ministerial profession of other names. 
But while we have had great cause for thanksgiving in this 
respect, though our skirts have not been altogether clear, 
what a motley assemblage we should have, were we to cull 
out from those who, nominally or really among our minis- 
ters, have been unsuited to the work — say during the last 
forty years ! Imagine the gathering, grouped according to 
' gifts ' and character ! — here, those interested solely in 
the negative or argumentative side of our faith, with no 
taste or care for its moral and spiritual meanings or appli- 
cations, — intent only on controversy ; here, adventurers 
'taking up ; the ministry simply as a means to 'get a liv- 
ing/ with no heart or conscience in it; here, men adrift, 
lodging for a time in our pulpits, as logs or chips, floating 
in a stream, lodge on the bank, or against a rock, until 
some eddy, or some fresh movement of the waters, chances 
to displace and send them farther on ; here, minds undisci- 
plined, often unbalanced, restless, crotchety, impracticable ; 
here, rattle-brained lovers of novelty and excitement, catch- 



196 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

ing at every fresh sensation, and at length whirled off by 
the latest ; here, pieces of inflamed, or pompous, self- 
conceit, enacting the part of the frog in the fable, or inces- 
santly fretting, because denied appreciation ; here, hot- 
heads, impetuous, frothy, unreasonable, usually unscrupu- 
lous ; here, those whose perpetual thought has been of self, 
and whose entire lives have turned upon some personal, or 
local, pivot, with no breadth of view, with no public spirit, 
with no devotion to our Church or our cause as a whole, 
caring only for the patch of ground their feet have covered, 
or their hoe has tilled, and anxious exclusively for what 
they were themselves somehow to get out of it ; here, 
schismatics, or latitudinarians, always riding some hobby, 
or protesting against rules, or advocating license under the 
name of freedom, and caring only for a nominal fellowship 
that they might the better serve their factious, noisy, liti- 
gious, or personal ends ; here, the listless and indifferent, 
insensible to all appeals, though every appeal might be 
blown through Gabriel's trumpet, and indisposed to lift a 
finger in the way of co-operation, whatever the necessities 
demanding it ; and here, finally, the drones, ignoramuses, 
do-nothings, ' settling ' every year, and occupying any field 
only to exhaust it. A motley company, indeed ! — greatly 
differing as to ability and the shadings of motives and pur- 
pose, or no-purpose, but having, most of them, these two 
things in common, viz., an utter lack of any thorough reli- 
gious awakening or experience, and an absence of any real 
sympathy with the ministry, or any central, absorbing con- 
secration, to it. 

Let no one suppose that I thus refer to those who have 
been in our ministry without being fitted for it, as if they 
ever had been, or — so far as we now have them — are, 
peculiar to us. The ministry of every church shows such. 
But without entering into comparisons, or debating whether 
we are more or less unfortunate than others in this partic- 
ular, all having any familiarity with the facts will agree 
that we have sorely suffered on this account. Who of us, 
of any length of service, has not known numerous speci- 
mens of every one of the groups described, and seen the 
mischief they have done ? And no one who has had any- 



OUR MINISTRY. 197 

thing like a personal acquaintance with those who have 
been enrolled in our " Register " since its first publication, can 
look through the successive issues and draw a pen across 
the names of those who should never have entered a pulpit, 
or who, if of right ability and character in other respects, 
have been lazy and irresponsive occupants of it, without 
finding occasion for surprise and thanksgiving that we are 
as strong and prosperous as we are. 

And yet, how could it well have been otherwise than it 
has been with us in this regard ? A new movement as ours 
was, bursting out of the heart and unlettered common- 
sense of the people, — led almost exclusively by uneducated 
men, — making fighting, of necessity, its chief business, — 
without schools or colleges, — without organization, — with 
crude and insufficient rules of fellowship and discipline, — 
so needing ministers and so ambitious for a show of in- 
creasing numbers, — with the doors into our ministry open 
to every stripling, or talker, however unripe, or unquali- 
fied, who had walked through a preacher's ' study/ or who 
was moved by any motive to preach, it is only a matter 
of amazement that we have had so many excellent and 
tolerable ministers as we have, and a number no larger 
of the other description. Since I cannot properly men- 
tion others as examples, may I be excused for illustrating 
how entrance was had to our ministry by referring to my 
own case? I was ' fellowshipped ' in June, 1836, just 
before I was twenty years old. I had left a very poor 
town-school — strangely called 'High' — a few months be- 
fore I was seventeen, with a meagre smattering of Latin 
and Greek and several other things, with a mind totally 
undisciplined, and thoroughly knowing nothing beyond the 
rudimentary studies. From March to November, 1833, as 
many another poor lad has done, having his own way to 
make, I was 'prospecting' for 'something to do/ hardly 
taking a book in my hand, when Providence opened the 
way for me to become a student in a Law Office, far away 
from my home. I accepted it at once because nothing else 
so desirable offered, though it had been my determination, 
from very early boyhood, to make the ministry my life-work. 
I found myself amidst very delightful associations, but 



198 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

where I had to hold my Universalism by a constant battle. 
Here, therefore, attending, for the most part, only 'the 
orthodox meeting/ and thrown upon my own resources, I 
obtained for the first time anything like discipline and logi- 
cal coherence in my religious thinking. Returning to my 
home in the summer of 1835, I soon after began, as it was 
called, 'to study' with Rev. T. F. King, the Portsmouth 
pastor : — that is, he gave me Mosheim, and subsequently 
one volume of Home, to read, and after a few weeks told 
me I " had better write a sermon/ 7 That was all ! Not a 
lesson recited, not a question asked, not a hint offered, 
touching what I was to do. Besides the books mentioned 
■ — saying nothing of a great deal of other reading I had 
done, not at all bearing on my chosen work, and much of it 
ruinously dissipating to all taste or relish for solid reading 
— I had read the "Trumpet " from its commencement, — had 
read a few pamphlet sermons, and possibly half a dozen other 
books relating to theology, including Paley's " Theology " 
and "Evidences." This, with some superficial acquaintance 
with the Bible, was my preparation for the ministry ! And 
so unprepared, I was sent out with the formal indorsement 
of the New Hampshire Convention, as entitled to full con- 
fidence as a minister — without a single inquiry as to per- 
sonal experience, as to reading or habits of study, as to 
opinions, purpose, or anything else ! I have always felt 
that it was by the special grace of God that I was kept 
from shaming the ministry and our cause by my utter unfit- 
ness — for a youth more immature in all essentials, or less 
prepared in every particular for the grave responsibilities I 
assumed, save that I looked considerably older than I was, 
and had a sincere desire to live correctly and to do good, 
it would be difficult to find : a fact which I unconsciously 
symbolized, let me add, by choosing a coat of very green, 
thin stuff for that first summer's wear ! 

And what was thus illustrated in my case was the rule, 
even down to a much later period than 1836. Of course, I 
do not intend to represent that only those thus immature, 
or unprepared, came into our ministry. There were occa- 
sionally those of riper years and of maturer and better-fur- 
nished minds. But the rule was about as shown in the 



OUR MINISTRY. 199 

illustration. Is it surprising that, as the consequence, we 
should have had many, not only totally unfit to enter, but 
equally unfit or unable to stay in our ministry ? Let God 
be praised, that out of such material, He was able to sift so 
much passable wheat, besides some that was a great deal 
more than passable ; and that, in spite of all the risks thus 
incurred, we have had a ministry on the whole so able and 
so Christian as it has been. Ah, saying nothing of ability, 
if all our ministers had been in other respects what they 
might have been, with the spirit of Dr. Ballou, and John 
Boyden, and our more recently departed brother, Bliss, 
what a different record we should have made ! what a wider 
and profounder work we should have done ! what a differ- 
ently equipped Church we should now be ! 

Has not the time come, as we enter upon our second cen- 
tury, for a New Departure in this regard, aiming at a minis- 
try which, as far as possible, bating inevitable human foibles 
and imperfections, shall be composed only of those possessed 
of such a spirit ? Can we not henceforth have a ministry, 
all of whom shall be not only trained men, but men of con- 
science, men of heart, men of consecrated will, men of pro- 
found and earnest religious life, men of enthusiasm and en- 
terprise in respect to the conversion of souls and the Christian 
enlargement and progress of our Church ? I approach this 
point with much hesitation. I am aware how delicate the 
ground is, and I shrink from saying all that is in my thought 
lest I be suspected of assuming some special fitness warrant- 
ing me to say it. Let it be understood that I assume no 
such thing, and that I take fully to myself all that I venture 
to suggest to others, better aware than anybody else how 
far I fall below my own ideals. But I feel that there are 
some particulars in which a change for the better in our 
ministry is imperatively demanded, as vital to our welfare, 
and that some one should be frank and brave enough to utter 
the words that should be said, even at the risk of receiving 
the old rebuke, "Physician, heal thyself." So I speak. 

As to the literary and theological acquirements requisite 
for entrance into our ministry, there is, happily, an increas- 
ing conviction in the right direction. Years ago it was a 



200 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

question much debated whether these acquirements were 
really essential, and there was a widespread feeling that 
they were not. But this question was substantially dis- 
posed of in the establishment of our first theological school. 
There are still considerable numbers, it is true, who think it 
pushing the matter too far to insist upon these conditions 
as in every instance indispensable. We must not be too 
strenuous or particular, these friends say. We need minis- 
ters, and it is wrong to discourage or turn away any good 
man of decent ability who is disposed to preach, simply be- 
cause he lacks scholastic training. Those with no such 
training had formerly free access to our pulpits, and many 
of them have made useful — some of them eminent — minis- 
ters. Why not bid such equally welcome now, at the same 
time that we carefully foster our theological schools, and do 
all we can to elevate our ministry through them ? 

Not a little sympathy would be found among us, probably, 
with the view which thus argues ; and occasionally one 
does even yet enter on our ministerial work with much the 
old lack of suitable preparation. But the growing sentiment, 
alike of our ministers and people, it is fortunate, is decidedly 
against this view, and in favor of insisting upon the best 
possible training. And this mainly for three reasons : First, 
because circumstances have so changed, and the general 
tone of culture and intelligence so improved, that such un- 
ripe and illy-furnished ministers as many of us were, and 
such productions as we used to give under the name of ser- 
mons, thirty-five or forty years ago, would not be tolerated 
now, or could be tolerated only to reflect discredit on all 
concerned. It is no small thing that the pulpit in these 
days has to do ; and if it is to hold its place, and maintain 
its power against all that is seeking to supplant it, or that 
the drift of events is tending to put into rivalry with it, 
there must be an end of admitting into it what the Country 
Parson once so felicitously described as ' veal/ or any but 
thoroughly prepared men. No pulpit can command the re- 
spect of intelligent minds, or do most for those who listen to 
it, unless it is at least fully up to the best average of exist- 
ing thought and attainments ; and of all churches, we can 
least afford to have our pulpit in any particular below the 



OUR MINISTRY. 201 

highest and latest demand of the hour. Second, because to 
admit any to our ministry in an abatement of the prepara- 
tory conditions, is so far to lower its standard and character 
as a whole, tearing down with one hand what we are trying 
to build up with the other, and saying in effect, that though 
schools and what schools can give are very well, they are 
in no essential respect important, and that, for our purposes, 
we do not care to be understood to think them necessary. 
And third, because it is no kindness, but, on the contrary, a 
great unkindness and injustice, to any man in times like 
these to encourage or allow him to take upon himself the 
exactions of the ministry except after the most careful 
preparation. Those who have in any measure succeeded 
without such previous training have done so at immense 
disadvantage, constantly hampered and impeded by their 
original deficiencies, or by the necessity of going over 
ground, or making up attainments, with which they should 
have been familiar in the outset ; and every such man has 
reasons, which only he and those of like experience can fully 
appreciate, for using every influence he can properly com- 
mand to deter those so inclined from entering any ministry 
in a similar condition of unpreparedness. The best prepa- 
ration will be found meagre enough for the highest useful- 
ness. Nor is it a consideration to be overlooked, that the 
more rigorous the training intellectually and theologically 
insisted on, the more effectually will the ministry be guard- 
ed against the flightiness and eccentricities, the crudities, 
and all the various results of unbalanced and undisciplined 
minds, from which we have suffered so severely. 

We want ministers, it is true ; but we want only those 
who will serve the truth and honor themselves, — not those 
who will fail in either of these respects. For this reason, it 
is to be hoped that the present tendency of feeling and re- 
quirement will go on, more and more elevating the standard 
of our ministry and the indispensable conditions of entrance 
into it. Ours is a great cause, destined, if there be not un- 
pardonable blundering or unfaithfulness somewhere, to be 
the leading religious movement of the world. God calls us 
to see that it is not intrusted to the keeping of little or in- 
competent hands. There was a time in the history of our 



202 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

Church, as in the history of most churches, and of Chris- 
tianity itself, when "the foolish things of the world were 
chosen to confound the wise, and the weak things to con- 
found the mighty, and base things, and things despised, and 
things that were not, to bring to naught things that were." 
There seems to be a time in all such great reforms and spirit- 
ual awakenings when God's word is to them as of old to Ze- 
rubbabel, " Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, 
saith the Lord of hosts." But though such may be their be- 
ginnings, if they are to proceed and to triumph, they must, 
while none the less invoking the Spirit of God, enlist ^uite 
other, and more effective, human instruments. Christianity 
was first preached by fishermen ; but what would it now be, 
had it been preached only by such without the special help 
that was given them ? The time is coming, I believe, in the 
subsidence of the present consuming fever of worldliness, 
when our young men will not be so generally enticed as now 
into mammon worship and the secular pursuits and profes- 
sions, and when the pulpit will duly assert its claims, and at- 
tract its share of the best brain and heart. Then the charac- 
ter and influence of the ministry that is in any church will do 
much to attract and determine the ministry which shall be ; 
and if we desire to have stout, healthy, thoroughly furnished, 
magnetic men in our pulpits, to attract and mould others 
like them, and to wield a power, by virtue of what they are, 
commensurate with the grandeur and worth of the truth 
they have, we cannot too soon begin to close the door 
against all who are not such. For myself, I am frank to 
say, taught by almost forty years' observation what harm 
comes to a church so far as it has ministers who are not 
true and manly men, I would admit no moral or intellectual 
weakling to our ministry ; no stripling in years ; no man of 
infirm will or vacillating purpose ; no nerveless, forceless, 
inoffensive man, destitute of energy, pluck, or propelling 
power. The ministry has had brave, strong men, many of 
them ; and of such, as has been intimated, our ministry has 
had its fair proportion. But there has been altogether too 
much of the idea that any ' pious ' or goodish young man, 
without vim or push, shrinking from the hard battle of life, 
or for any reason unfitted to make his way in the world in 



OUR MINISTRY. 203 

any 'more practical calling/ furnishes good enough material 
for the ministry, or can most appropriately dispose of him- 
self in it. It is time that this idea were abandoned. If any 
profession should have picked men, it is the ministry ; and 
of all men, the minister should be the last to be composed 
of stuif that cannot make its way in any other calling. The 
best, the strongest, the most energetic, the most practically 
sagacious minds find use for all they are, or can be, in this 
work ; and this is becoming every year more and more the 
fact. 

And insisting, first, on the qualities thus indicated as es- 
sential, I would — because taught by painful experience 
what penalties one incurs by entering the ministry without 
due training — equally insist that no man, whatever else he 
may be, shall receive our fellowship without at least a full 
course in some theological school with a first-class curricu- 
lum, and that these partial courses, which give so many the 
name of a school without giving them what the school is de- 
signed to insure, must be forbidden, and wholly cease. The 
man who desires to be a minister of Christ looks to an office 
of grave importance, especially in these days ; and he should 
be willing to pay the required price of waiting and study to 
attain it. Having paid this price, he can do more in ten 
years than he can in twenty, or perhaps in a whole lifetime, 
if he " climbs up some other way." If there are those who 
cannot pay this price, let them be content to be lay preach- 
ers, provisions for whom are now made among us, or give 
up the ministry altogether. Better a small ministry than a 
weak or an incompetent one ; and better for any man that 
he be out of the ministry, in some honest and useful calling, 
than in it to be a drone or a cipher. For of all wrecks 
stranded on its beaches, not occasioned by serious moral of- 
fences, what wrecks has the world sadder, more useless, or 
more pitiable than those of men who, trying to be ministers, 
have succeeded only in being — nothing, and some of whom 
at last starve on the undeserved alms which they beg or 
sponge from the church they have never really served ? 
Let us, for our part, as a Church, have done with encour- 
aging, either directly or by toleration, those who can only 
be such. " Put none but Americans on guard to-night/' it 



204 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

used to be said Washington once ordered. Is it too much 
to hope that the time is coming when it will be one of the 
' general orders ' of our Church, that none but those prepared 
for the work shall be put into the watch-towers of our Zion, 
and when to say that a man is a Universalist minister will 
be the same as to say, that whatever he may be physically, 
he is a robust, large-hearted, vigorous-willed man, with a 
masculine brain, thoroughly equipped for doing God's work 
in a wise, practical, manly way ? 

But this is the least important side of the subject. Brain, 
and force, and thorough intellectual and theological train- 
ing, indispensable as they are, avail nothing for the final 
purpose of the ministry, except as they are possessed and 
sanctified by something deeper and more experimental. This 
something deeper is the great thing after all, therefore ; and 
coming now to this, summing up many particulars in the 
fewest possible general statements, there are four requisites, 
without any one of which, no man — be his qualifications in 
other respects what they may — should find it henceforth 
possible to enter our ministry. 

I. The first is faith. This is the primary thing in the 
order of a distinctively Christian experience. It is equally 
fundamental among the conditions of Christian usefulness. 
Christ built his Church on the rock of his confessed Messiah- 
ship. Would he have sent out men to be his ministers who did 
not in this respect build with him — who denied or questioned 
what he so affirmed ? Invariably his demand was, Believe, 
whether he was about to perform his works of healing, or to 
induct souls into his kingdom. And sent forth on this basis 
of Faith, the Apostles enforced the same demand. The bur- 
den of their preaching, and of the whole New Testament in 
this regard is well summed up in Paul's charge to the Co- 
lossians (ii. 6-8), "As ye have therefore received Christ 
Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him, rooted and built up in 
him, and stablished in the faith as ye have been taught, 
abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware lest any man 
spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tra- 
ditions of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not 
after Christ." Our Church has from the first recognized 



OUR MINISTRY. 205 

this primal necessity of faith, and alike its law and its usage 
are now unmistakably settled on this point. Both for min- 
isters and organized bodies, " expressed assent to the Win- 
chester Confession of Faith " is "essential" to our fellow- 
ship. Nor is there the remotest probability that this law 
will ever be repealed. The believing sentiment among us 
is too pronounced and universal for this. Our sole danger 
in this respect is, that through a loose and latitudinarian 
construction, our established standards may be made of none 
effect. Those familiar with our affairs need not be told that 
already, in some instances, these standards have been thus 
made of none effect, and that men have found entrance to 
our ministry alike against the letter and spirit of our 'Con- 
fession/ only sooner or later to make their unbelief mani- 
fest, and to become elements of discord and occasions of 
mischief wherever they have labored. It is against this that 
we need to guard. Our standards are right and sufficient. 
We have only to insist that they be honestly construed. 

It is unfortunate that some minds are so constituted that 
they cannot see the limits to which all general axioms are 
subject, and that, laying hold of any such axiom, they are 
sure to carry it to extremes. Only on this account could 
there be any difference of opinion among sincere and thought- 
ful Christian people concerning this question of ministerial 
fellowship. Starting with the axiom that life, as a ground 
of confidence, is more than opinion, and adding to it the 
axiom that every man has a right to think untrammelled to 
any conclusion to which, in his judgment, truth conducts 
him, or to stop short of any conclusion which he does not 
see reason to reach, the advocates of a • broad ' fellowship 
say, How can you require any good man to believe as you 
do, as a condition to your fellowship, without overlooking 
the greater for the less, or without infringing upon his lib- 
erty as a thinker ? If a man's life is right, and he wishes 
to work with you, you must admit him to your fellowship, 
whatever his opinions. The number of such extremists 
among us has not been large. The atmosphere of our 
Church has never proved inviting or healthy for them. But 
we have had them, nevertheless, some of them desiring to 
sweep away our ' Confession ' altogether, and all of them 



206 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

agreeing that it is gross intolerance, a despicable copying 
of ' orthodox * narrowness and bigotry, to insist on any dif- 
ference between faith and unbelief as a ground of fellow- 
ship, if one but calls himself a Christian, and desires admis- 
sion to our ministry. Away with ' heresy-hunting M has 
been their cry. Let us be ' broad ' ! Let us be ' liberal ' ! 
What if a man does not fully accept our standards ? Let 
him be true to himself. His advanced thought is doubtless 
so much fresh gold, 'dug from the mines of truth without re- 
gard to authority or prescription. Better for us, perhaps, 
if we were a Church without any doors ; but since we have 
them, let us throw them open wide enough to admit every 
earnest soul, and all who can be induced to join us, without in- 
quiring too minutely as to their faith, or whether they accept 
the ' Confession ' just as it was meant to be accepted or not. 
This kind of talk has enough of the sound of large 
and generous thinking to deceive not a few who would at 
once repudiate it, were it not for this superficial seeming of 
tolerance and magnanimity. But it only needs to be emp- 
tied of its pretty words, and to be regarded with reference 
to its substance, to be seen to have but one meaning, and 
to tend to but one result. As the statement of a general 
principle, it would make any special co-operation on the 
basis of common convictions or sympathies impossible ; and 
as a programme of action by our Church, or any church, it 
means inevitable disintegration — the loss of Christian dis- 
tinctness, and the consequent loss of Christian power. Fel- 
lowship of any sort necessarily implies some ground of spe- 
cial sympathy on which those in fellowship stand together ; 
and if it is no infringement of the liberty of personal think- 
ing for those associated in scientific pursuits to require sci- 
entific tastes and sympathies as a ground of their scientific 
fellowship, or for those banded for some philanthropic pur- 
pose to exclude from their membership those indifferent or 
opposed to the objects they are associated to serve, how or 
why can it be a violation of any law of courtesy, or of any- 
body's rights as a thinker, to insist that no man shall be 
fellowshipped as a minister of Christ unless he has faith in 
Christ as the special messenger of God, and sympathy with 
the ends which, in God's behalf, he is seeking to accomplish ? 



OUR MINISTRY. 207 

An association, by whatever name called, would be but a 
promiscuous herd of people destitute of any common thought 
or aim, if, without regard to its purpose, everybody so dis- 
posed, on the ground that he is a decent man, could demand 
admission into it ; and the same principle applied to a 
church would make it a mockery of anything like the true 
church-idea, robbing Christian fellowship of all distinctive 
meaning, and the ministry of everything peculiar to it as the 
ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. Only he, clearly, who, 
whatever he may be ready to say, sincerely accepts the 
Bible as the authoritative record of God's Word, and be- 
lieves in Christ as Lord and Redeemer, can fitly be sent out 
to preach truth and duty on the authority of the Bible, and 
to summon souls to that faith in Christ which can alone 
quicken and sanctify them unto salvation. As well might 
one be graduated to teach mathematics who denies the mul- 
tiplication table, or to practise medicine, believing it his 
business to poison instead of to cure. 

Equally by our principles and our traditions, we are ir- 
revocably committed to liberty of opinion and the largest 
right of free inquiry. No people are more thoroughly per- 
vaded with the instinct of rebellion against all that would 
deny, or limit, or in the slightest degree trench upon this 
liberty ; nor, under any circumstances, can we be otherwise 
than tolerant and catholic without being false to every sug- 
gestion and requirement of the Gospel as we receive it. 
But we stand also — we always have stood — for the Bible, 
for Christ and the Divine Authority of his religion. As a 
branch of the Church of Christ, we exist solely to convert 
men to faith in him, and to persuade them to accept and fol- 
low him as Lord. So existing, we should become a lie the 
moment we should lose sight of this purpose, and admit to 
our fellowship, no matter on what pretext, men without 
faith in the Bible, or in Christ as the Sent of God ; for how 
could such men convert their hearers to faith in Christ, or 
plead with them to give themselves to him ? Perceiving 
this, we have always discriminated between liberty and li- 
cense — between the right of free inquiry and the right to 
hold infidel opinions under a garb of Christian pretence. It 
is to be hoped that we always shall make this distinction. 



208 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

Doing so, while we shall maintain the right of unlimited 
freedom of interpretation in our Church on the basis of the 
Bible, and the equal right of all Christians to understand 
the Bible for themselves, we shall no less rigorously main- 
tain that any who cannot, without reserve, build on this 
Christian basis, must exercise their freedom of thought and 
rights of conscience outside our Christian recognition. 
Unbelief, infidelity is infidelity, gloss or sugar-coat it as we 
may. Our duty is to treat it as such, in whomsoever it 
may come knocking at our doors ; and if it be charged that 
this is illiberality, the sufficient reply is, in the words of the 
wise and catholic Dr. Ballou, that the harm is " not in call- 
ing things by their right names, but in a wrong spirit 
towards the things themselves. We may be very illiberal 
in our treatment of one whom we acknowledge to be a 
Christian ; we may be perfectly liberal in our relations with 
those whom we do not regard as Christians. If an other- 
wise good man is, in point of fact, not a believer, in the 
New Testament sense of the term, we ought to say so 
frankly ; and then, if he suffers unjustly on that account, it 
is of course because there is an unjust odium against the 
name that properly belongs to him, and our duty is to re- 
move that undue prejudice, — not to violate truth by striv- 
ing to shelter him under a false appellation. 7 '* 

This is the position of a practical common sense. Occu- 
pying it, we limit nobody. We hinder nobody. We deny 
nobody's rights. We withhold our hand from no worthy 
man, who, as a worthy man, asks our recognition. We 
simply deal with things as they are, saying, Our Christian 
fellowship has a distinctive Christian meaning, and can be 
given only to those who stand by faith on the Christian 
foundation. Any other position can be occupied by us only 
at our peril. We gain nothing when we admit any man to 
our ministry who does not put himself squarely and hon- 
estly on our Christian platform. Those who would admit 
such tell us, sometimes, of the acquisitions we should re- 
ceive, had we ' more liberal ' terms of fellowship, and 
admonish us to think how much we are losing by shutting 

* Universalist Quarterly, Vol. iii. p. 387. 



OUR MINISTRY. 209 

them out. But such losses are always gains, as such addi- 
tions are weakness instead of strength. We trifle with 
momentous interests, and place much at hazard, every time 
we experiment with such a man ; and though I have known 
rare instances in which young men of immature and unset- 
tled opinions, with decided doubts and uncertainties in- 
stead of faith, have ripened into ministers of clear thought, 
devoted and useful, the risk of putting such men into the 
pulpit is too great, the proprieties sacrificed too serious, 
and the answer to- every application of this sort should be, 
Settle your own faith first, before asking to be sent out as 
a teacher of faith to others. No man, indeed, it should be 
held, is in a condition even to think towards our ministry, 
until, as Christ asks the olden question, "Whom say ye 
that I am ? " he is able, in full assurance, to say with Peter, 
"Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God;' 7 — "thou 
hast the words of eternal life." As a matter of conviction, 
only such a man is qualified to preach Christ for the estab- 
lishment and edification of others ; and, almost as impor- 
tant in another sense, as a matter of moral preparedness, 
only such a man has the faith which can remove mountains, 
and so give the vigor aud earnestness, the courage and 
persistence, by which only are ministerial success and vic- 
tory won. 

II. Another requisite to entrance into our ministry is a 
personal religious experience. Ordinarily, one's religion is 
not a thing for him to talk about, and one's religious experi- 
ence, if he has had any, is something too sacred, as between 
his soul and God, for any one else to pry into. But, as 
when one desires to assume the vows of church membership, 
so when the question is, Shall this man be a minister of 
Christ, for the salvation of souls ? all such reserve should 
cease. A personal, spiritual awakening, a profound and 
mastering religious experience is, next to faith, the primary 
condition of ministerial usefulness, without which there can 
be no such feeling, thinking, preaching, aim, or work of any 
sort, as the office demands. Were the minister's business 
simply to instruct, the case would be different. But his 
grand purpose is, not to instruct, or intellectually to con- 
vince. He deals with themes concerning which most of 
14 



210 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

those to whom he speaks are already, theoretically, in sub- 
stantial agreement with him. Using these — for the most 
part — conceded truths, his business is to arouse, to con- 
vert, to stimulate, to bend obstinate knees in contrition 
before the cross, and so to lead souls to Christ, consecrated 
to God in the Christian life. Everything else is subordinate 
to this. Christ is Teacher ; but he is something more : is 
Teacher only that he may be Quickener and Inspirer. So 
every minister, pleading with souls in his name, should seek 
to be. But how can he impart what he does not possess ? 
How quicken others if he has never himself been quick- 
ened ? How prostrate other knees before the cross if his 
own have not first knelt there ? How help his hearers into 
the religious life if he is not himself religious, and his own 
soul has never thrilled with the fervors and the indwelling 
power which he is the medium to communicate ? 

I judge no man ; but I confess that it strikes me as quite 
out of the line of all natural sequence and probability to 
look for permanent religious fruit from one with whom talk 
about religion is simply perfunctory and professional, — 
never spontaneous. Nor does it seem to me reasonable 
that any church is likely to be much profited by ministers 
who are personally never en rapport with the deepest and 
most vital themes of the pulpit ; who care only to deny or 
to argue, or who would rather be in a theatre than in a 
conference meeting, or whose tastes run to stale jokes and 
low and lewd stories rather than to the ' communion of 
saints/ or to converse on Gospel themes ; who impress 
nobody as religious men, and who fail to diffuse any odor 
of seriousness or consecration, however in talking they may 
simulate what they do not feel, and in some instances even 
appear to be the means of producing results in others 
which have never been produced in themselves. The law 
of influence is subtile, but absolute. According to what 
we are, magnetic currents flow from us ; and in the long 
run, such men, however eloquent or seemingly in earnest, 
seldom give out anything for the spiritual help of anybody ; 
are found, on the contrary, usually, to lower the tone of 
taste and character, religiously, of all with whom they are 
brought into closest association. If one is to communicate, 
he must have. 



OUR MINISTRY. 211 

"He is a well-meaning brother, of good ability/' I re- 
member to have once heard one of our ministers say of 
another, " but he has never experienced religion." Will any 
one say that this was ' the right man in the right place 7 ? 
The remark was made many years ago ; but the description, 
unfortunately, is precisely that which, speaking truthfully, 
would have to be given of many a minister whom I have 
since known — of not a few in our pulpits as of some 
in others ; men not bad in any sense — most of them 
meaning well, but lacking any positive affinity with religion, 
and having no more consciousness of what it is as an experi- 
ence, or as a pervading, in-working power, than the heart 
of an iceberg has of warmth, or than the calculating brain 
of a mathematician has of the kindling of a poet's soul. 
And a human being more utterly out of place than such a 
minister, who can find ? Put a man, who has never seen 
the sda, on board a ship, to navigate it across the ocean, — 
put a plough-boy, who knows nothing of steam, or valves, 
in charge of an engine, or a locomotive, — set one up in 
business, who is ignorant of accounts and has no idea 
of bargains, and you do what is no more unreasonable, 
or preposterous, than when a man is put into the pulpit, 
who, even though his perceptions, theoretically, may be 
clear, and his convictions intelligent and firm, knows noth- 
ing experimentally of the religion which he is to represent, 
or of its quickening and saving work. 

Only a little while ago, I heard of a minister who — I 
use the precise words reported to me from his lips — gave 
this account of his entrance into the ministry, — it is no 
concern here to say into what ministry: "I found that I 
had the gift of gab, and an opportunity to go to a theo- 
logical school being offered me, I determined to make my 
gift available in that direction." "But had you no religious 
experience, no impulse to prayer, no spirit of devotion ? " 
asked the friend to whom the statement was made. " None, 
whatever," was the frank reply. " At least, you had some 
positive faith, — a clear assurance of the truth of Chris- 
tianity, and a firm persuasion as to the soundness of what 
you were to preach?" "Nothing of the kind," was the 
rejoinder. " I simply knew that I could talk, and seeing in 



212 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

the ministry my best field for talk, and in the particular 
denomination with which I identified myself as good an 
opening- as anywhere, I went in. That's the whole of it." 
What shall we say of a man who could so mock all the 
sacred themes with which he was to deal as to go into the 
ministry in the state of mind, and from the motives, thus 
confessed ? Or, what spiritual future can there be for any 
church the doors of whose ministry are so carelessly 
kept as to render it possible for such men to be among 
its ministers? And yet, we have had such ministers, as 
well as other churches ; and those of us most familiar 
with the facts would be able, if required, to put our fingers 
upon the names of some such occupying our pulpits this 
very day. 

It is time that the entrance of any more such — at least 
into our ministry, should cease. If it is needful that a 
candidate be examined in opinion, or in literary and theo- 
logical acquirements, why not as to spiritual condkion and 
religious preparedness ? Hitherto, for reasons sufficiently 
set forth in the chapter on Experimental Religion and pages 
preceding, far less attention has been given among us to 
this experimental element of Christian power, alike in the 
pulpit and in the pews, than was for our good. It must not 
be so in the time to come. If we are to be a living Chris- 
tian people, doing positive Christian work, a New Departure 
in this respect, as I trust has hereinbefore been made appar- 
ent, is indispensable. And if there is to be such a New 
Departure among the people, it must begin among the 
ministers. As said in opening, they are the leaders. If 
there are to be torches carried, their hands are to carry 
them. If there are coals from off God's altar with which 
we are to be set aflame, their hearts are the censers in which 
they are first to burn. We cannot be a Church pervaded 
with religious life except as our ministers foster and impart 
it. Thank God for all that is telling of an increased spirit- 
ual vitality among us — the result mainly, under God, of 
what spiritually-awakened and religious ministers have been 
trying to do. But there is yet great opportunity for im- 
provement ; and if this improvement is to be made, our 
ministers must be the chief instruments for promoting it. 



OUR MINISTRY, 213 

I have tried to show that, if we are to be the Church we 
should aim to be, we must be a more devout, Bible-reading, 
praying, consecrated people ; but, while fully recognizing 
all that individual believers, through the help of the Bible 
and the quickenings and nutriment of the Holy Spirit, have 
been and may be independent of ministerial influence, mak- 
ing their own way upward in the religious life, it is not too 
much to say, speaking of ourselves collectively, that we 
cannot be such a people except as we have devout, Bible- 
reading, praying, consecrated ministers : ministers glowing 
with religious fervor ; ministers instinct with spiritual life ; 
ministers knowing within themselves what it is to be bap- 
tized through and through with the baptism from on high, 
and, like Stephen and Barnabas, ' good men, full of the 
Holy Ghost and of faith/ giving themselves ' continually 
to prayer and to the ministry of the word ; ' ministers who 
live with their hearts close to Christ's, in the atmosphere 
of an habitual consciousness of God and in sweet and holy 
nearness to him, and who thus become channels through 
which the life of God may flow into the lives of those 
for whom they labor. 

Let me not be suspected of urging that ministers should 
be other than fresh, natural, genial men. Whatever those 
not such men may do elsewhere, only those who are such can 
be of service to us. We have no room for ministers who 
think it necessary in any way to sink the man, or whose 
whole stock in trade is the cut of their coats, or a sanctimo- 
niousness of countenance. We want no cant ; no pre- 
tence ; no sacerdotal formalism ; no priestly airs, or austere 
affectations ; no assumptions of a mystical functionaryism, 
as if a minister plus his office weighs a single iota more 
than he weighs by virtue of what he is as a man. We 
want no whining ; no stiff, strait-laced, long-faced pietism ; 
no fossilized acidity that reckons it the chief end of religion 
to suppress every mirthful emotion, calling the world mean- 
while to take note how devout it is, or tragically clasping 
its hands and turning up its eyes, and groaning ! at the 
folly or the wickedness it is compelled to witness. Thought- 
ful people sickened of this long ago ; and of all Christians, 
we, with our humane, sensible, cheerful faith, should revolt 



214 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

from it with the most titter disgust. Religion is genuine 
manliness, — a real, hearty, healthy spiritual life ; and what 
we want in our ministry, first of all, is men — full-blooded, 
wholesome, hearty, sympathetic men, alive in every human 
fibre and faculty, willing to pass for just what they are 
worth, neither pedants nor pharisees, and able to see and 
enjoy all there is in life, in a large, free, wise understanding 
of what God intended our human life to be. But no matter 
how wholesome, hearty, or sympathetic a man may be in 
other respects, he has no fitness for the ministry, and can 
be in no proper sense useful in it, except as his ' life is hid 
with Christ in God. 7 The more of a man he is, and the 
fuller he is of all human juices, the better ; but he must be 
sanctified to the core. Every beat of his heart should be a 
thought of God and a prayer. Conscious of the Unseen and 
the Imperishable, his whole being should be flooded from 
above ; and centred on God, having his ' conversation in 
heaven/ his character should be saturated with religious 
sensibility and purpose, and every wish and thought should 
be keyed to the Divine. Only such a man is really in 
sympathy with the minister's work, or is likely to be of 
service in the minister's office. 

Has not the time fully come for us to commit ourselves to 
this position, and to show, by what we exact for entrance 
into our ministry, that we intend to maintain it ? No matter 
how brilliant, well-informed, or apparently promising in 
other respects, no man should henceforth find the door into 
our ministry open to him, under any circumstances, or 
through any influence, except as it is made satisfactorily to 
appear that he is, experimentally and thoroughly, a reli- 
gious man. Talent, eloquence, learning, readiness of utter- 
ance, all these are desirable, and, when consecrated, are 
means of power. But personal religion alone infuses into 
them the element by which they can be made effective for 
the spiritual quickening and salvation of souls ; and what 
use, finally, have we, or has any church, for ministers except 
for these ends ? 

III. Still another requisite for entrance into our ministry 
should be a hearty confession of obligation to co-operate in our 
Church-work. The Report of the Board of Trustees of our 



OUE MINISTRY. 215 

General Convention for 1872 contained a statement of pain- 
ful significance. Speaking of various causes accounting for 
our failure to realize the sum voted by the Convention dur- 
ing the year, the Trustees say, "But after due allowance 
has been made for extraordinary events unfavorable to our 
work, the fact remains that, with some honorable excep- 
tions, we have lacked the hearty co-operation of our clergy 
— a co-operation without which no church-enterprise can 
succeed, and with which, freely given at the beginning of 
the year, the Special Fund could have been easily raised." 
The painful significance of this statement is in the fact that 
it discloses a chronic lack among us, from which we are 
widely and very seriously suffering. More than on any 
other single account, our denominational work fails to be 
done as we have the abundant resources to do it, solely 
because so many of our ministers refuse or neglect to put 
themselves into sympathetic accord with our plans and 
efforts, as alike their Christian vows and their denominational 
obligations require. This may seem a sweeping assertion. 
I mean it to be so. It is time that the truth on this point 
should be fully told, to arrest the attention and stir to the 
action it calls for ; and I desire to emphasize the statement 
just made, as one intended to affirm all that the language 
seems to convey. It has fallen to my lot to have peculiar 
occasion to know whereof I affirm touching this subject. 
During the past thirty years, I have been intimately associ- 
ated with our Church activities in four different States, and 
I have also held similar relations to our general work from 
the hour it was begun. And from first to last, wherever I 
have been, whatever the effort in hand, the one thing most 
in our way, the one incubus which it has been found most 
impossible to lift, or remove, has been the indifference, the 
inertia, the irresponsiveness of our ministers. Noble excep- 
tions there have been, as the Board of Trustees testified of 
the year of which they spoke — in the aggregate, many of 
them. But the rule has been, on oue plea or another, in- 
ertia, unconcern, inaction, thwarting, hindering-, enfeebling 
what has been undertaken, — in not a few instances, causing 
what might have been a gratifying success to end in mor- 
tifying failure. And the testimony I am thus compelled 



216 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

to give in respect to the fields and efforts with which I 
have been familiar, is, I am confident, in substance, precise- 
ly that which will be given by those in like relations else- 
where. 

Various explanations of this state of things suggest them- 
selves — explanations which enable us to see how men may 
be thus at fault, and yet be in the main good men, as 
the most of our ministers have been and are ; but explana- 
tions, or no explanations, what has thus wrought so much 
to our injury, and what is still so weakening and hindering 
us, must henceforward cease, or our fate is sealed. Sad 
and instructive demonstration was more than once furnished 
by the Army of the Potomac of what an army, hoAvever ex- 
cellent or otherwise well-appointed, is likely to accomplish 
if officered by men without loyalty to those in command, 
and therefore indisposed to enter heartily into their plans. 
And what is true in this regard of an army thus officered, is 
equally true of a church whose ministers have no sympathy 
with the work it proposes. The chief explanation of the vigor 
and growth of the Methodist Church is in the fact that it is 
organized on the principle that every minister in its connec- 
tion not only owes it allegiance, but is formally and sacred- 
ly pledged to loyalty and co-operation in its service, render- 
ing himself liable to discipline and suspension if he fails to 
keep this pledge. The same thing, after some form, is true 
of every church that has ever made itself a religious power. 
Is it to be supposed that there is success for us on any 
other terms ? Its ministers are the propelling, executive 
forces of every church ; and it is the testimony alike of all 
observation and of all experience that as are the ministers 
so is the church. In respect to the highest religious plead- 
ings and appeals, it must be confessed, the most earnest 
ministers not unfrequently find many of their people much 
too impervious and irresponsive. But in all matters of de- 
nominational interest and church-work, the temper of the 
minister usually determines that of the people ; and if, feel- 
ing right and working faithfully, ministers will wisely lead, 
the people will follow. There are occasional exceptions ; 
but the rule is that a live minister makes a live people, and 
that a dead or indifferent minister makes a people like him- 



OUR MINISTRY. 217 

self. Under God, therefore, it rests with our ministers to 
determine whether we are to be a live, enterprising, grow- 
ing Church, or the contrary ; and if our work lags, or fails, 
— if our appointed collections are neglected, or, if taken, 
are small and unappreciative, compared with what they 
should be, — if our statistical reports are neglected, — if 
our Convention and its plans get no thought or sympathy, 
and the Church is the object of no loving loyalty, or gener- 
ous consideration, the fault will, mainly, be theirs. 

One thing is certain : If as a Church we have any right 
to be, there is something for us to do, — a constantly en- 
larging work of teaching, building, and church extension to 
which, according to our growth and the increase of our re- 
sources, we are summoned of God to address ourselves. 
We claim to have God's truth. If we have, no words can 
exaggerate the greatness of the trust, or the seriousness of 
our responsibilities. We have it for no mere purpose of 
theory or sentiment. Christ did not come that he might 
give men something to believe or argue about. We have it 
as the stewards of God, that ' in Christ's stead,' we may 
proclaim it, and help on the triumphs of God's kingdom and 
the redemption of our race. We are no Church of Christ if 
the consciousness of such a work does not possess us. 
And if we have such a work, how is it to be done ? — how, 
except as every one bearing our name catches something of 
the impulse to help it on ? — how, especially, except as 
every minister who seeks our fellowship counts it his duty 
to enlist in it, and, to the extent of his ability, to push it for- 
ward ? I may have extreme, and therefore unsound, views ; 
but on any theory of morals, or of the fitness of things, 
which I find it possible to hold, it seems to me the most un- 
pardonable trifling for any man to ask our fellowship as a 
minister, and then coolly to assume that he owes our Church 
no loyalty or service, and that he has the right to treat with 
utter indifference all the denominational enterprises that are 
soliciting his furtherance and co-operation. For what end 
do denominations, with their fellowship, exist except that 
they may undertake and the better accomplish such enter- 
prises ? And why should any one seek identification with 
us in form, unless he is ready heartily to identify himself 



218 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

with us in spirit, and in all that, in Christ's name, we are 
trying to do ? 

The question of sects or churches is simply a question 
of instruments. No wise man loves any organization, be 
it a sect, a church, or whatever else, for itself — only for 
what it represents, and for its uses. The obligation to labor 
for the truth being conceded, the obligation to employ the 
best means for its service follows of course ; and on the 
same principle upon which associated action in every other 
department of life is found to be most effective, a sect, or 
church, is proved to be not only a moral necessity if men 
have any positiveness of conviction and purpose, but the 
best means for religious work. As such a means, it has 
imperative claims, by so much as the truth itself has any 
claims, on every one in sympathy with the ideas it repre- 
sents ; and whoever, so sympathizing with it, fails to unite 
with and support it, — above all, whoever connects himself 
with it and then declines or neglects to do what he can to 
make it a power, fails to be either consistent or faithful, 
and incurs guilt accordingly. 

The world is wide, and no man is compelled to ask our 
fellowship. But choosing to ask it, it can be honestly, or 
honorably, accepted only as, in good faith, all the respon- 
sibilities and obligations which it implies are accepted with 
it — alike those specially denominational as well as those 
in a more general sense called Christian. In such a case, 
denominational duties become Christian duties. Nor, though 
there are very good men who do-it, can I conceive of con- 
duct more flagrantly violating every principle of manly deal- 
ing than that of which those are guilty, who seek and take 
our fellowship only to be oblivious to every such duty. 
There are two classes who do this : — on the one hand, 
those who seem to think that they confer a favor upon us 
by patronizing us with their presence and consenting to 
occupy our pulpits, and that, doing so much, they are at 
liberty to hold themselves haughtily or contemptuously 
aloof from all our plans, as if such things could be no con- 
cern of theirs ; — on the other hand, those who lazily count 
it enough not to render themselves liable to discipline for 
what is called immoral conduct, and who thereupon pocket 



OUR MINISTRY. 219 

the money for preaching in positions to which our fellow- 
ship has introduced them, apparently with not the most dis- 
tant thought that they owe it to themselves, or to us, to 
speak a word, or lift a finger, in behalf of anything we are 
doing. Ready, and usually eager, to avail themselves of all 
the advantages of denominational association, both these 
classes are alike dead to all sense of denominational obliga- 
tion, and act as if churches existed merely to serve their 
personal convenience. 

Have we not suffered, are we not suffering enough on 
account of such ministers ? Do we desire any more such ? 
Are we willing that any more shall find their way among 
us, to hinder, weaken and discourage us ? If not, should 
we not say so, and take measures to insure that only those 
of a different spirit and purpose shall henceforth receive our 
fellowship ? It is one of the fundamental statutes of our 
Convention that " every clergyman applying for fellowship 
shall be understood as thereby pledging a due observance of 
all the laws of the Convention." Here is the provision suffi- 
cient, if duly enforced, for all that is demanded. Shall it 
be so enforced ? What but comparative feebleness and fail- 
ure is before us if it is not ? Is it wisdom for us to neglect 
alike the lessons of our own experience, and the sugges- 
tions that come to us from the growth and prosperity of 
others ? Why should we not for the upbuilding and exten- 
sion of the kingdom of truth, avail ourselves of laws and 
principles which have been found so effective for the further- 
ance of error ? It is often said, when the lessons from other 
churches in this particular are referred to, that the genius 
of our Church is unlike that of those representing a severer 
theology, and that we are not to be brought to the accept- 
ance of such principles of responsibility as they adopt. Is it 
so ? Certainly, the genius of our Church, theologically, is 
different from that of these other churches ; but is it there- 
fore different in respect to the wisest and most practical 
ways of compassing essential church-ends ? If it is, and 
we really cannot be brought to accept the principles and to 
comply with the conditions upon which, iri the nature of 
things, success depends, then there is no future for us as 
a Church, and our errand is fulfilled. But this, I trust, 



220 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

none of us believe. It used to be said that we never could 
be organized in any compact and positive form. We have 
disproved that. We shall, I hope, equally disprove the as- 
sumption that the genius of our Church is so loose and law- 
less that we cannot be induced to adopt the principle that 
there is such an obligation as denominational fealty, and 
that ministers who have sought our fellowship are bound to 
enlist in our Church-work, and must be duly dealt with as 
unfaithful if they do not. At all events, it is only as we 
proceed upon this principle that the Universalist Church 
can fulfil the destiny to which it is invited. It is for us to 
say whether we will perceive the necessity thus laid upon 
us, and shape our requirements accordingly ; nor can I fail 
to add that our theological schools will not, in my judgment, 
do their whole duty in the way of Ministerial Education, and 
send forth ministers prepared for the best service, until they 
shall have Chairs specially charged to train young men to a 
proper estimate of obligation, and to a familiarity with the 
best methods, in this regard. 

IV. The final requisite to be now mentioned for entrance 
hereafter into our ministry is a chivalrous sinking of self in 
consecration to Christ and the Church. A sorrowful illustra- 
tion was given me, a year or two since, of the spirit in 
which some young men are entering the ministry. Talking 
with a theological student, I inquired about his classmates 
and others, and received this reply: "There isn't a man 
in the class who isn't good for two thousand dollars when 
he gets through ! " I inwardly exclaimed, God help the 
church of which they are to be ministers, if this is what all 
the class are thinking of, and did not continue the conver- 
sation. Does it need to be said that any such mercenari- 
ness of motive totally unfits one for the ministry ? In its 
very nature, the ministry is necessarily, in some sort, a re- 
nunciation of self, and all mere self-seeking'. Ordinarily, 
indeed, the rule is, as Paul well states it, " that they which 
preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel ; " and, except 
under peculiar circumstances, no man is justified in continu- 
ing in the ministry unless he can realize enough from his 
labors to keep himself and his family above want: for "if 
any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his 



OUR MINISTRY. 221 

own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an 
infidel." But, while one is warranted in duly keeping this 
obligation in mind, and cannot ordinarily be warranted in 
failing so to keep it in mind, the true minister, as he con- 
templates his work, never stops to consider how much he 
is to get for it. Impressed with the supreme importance of 
spiritual things, and filled with a desire to devote his life to 
them, he finds himself, by an irresistible impulse, precipi- 
tated into the ministry. No thought of place or pay occu- 
pies him. His thought is only of God and Christ and souls. 
A sense alike of duty and of privilege possesses and propels 
him. Paul admirably tells the story: "Necessity is laid 
upon me ; yea, woe is unto me if I preach not the Gospel." 
This is the real call to the ministry ; and without this call, 
it is sacrilege for any man even to look towards the office 
— as if it were a mere profession or trade, to be chosen, as 
other pursuits may be, with reference to the position or 
' salary ' it will give. Only as one forgets every worldly 
advantage, in a willingness to relinquish all for Christ's sake 
and the Gospel's, is he in a condition to debate whether he 
will be a minister of the cross. 

And this surrender of every worldly and secular ambition, 
in a relinquishment of all thought of wealth and place and 
the right to pursue them, does but indicate what is involved 
in the nature of the ministry as a renunciation of every ele- 
ment of a mere self-assertion. Self, as a ruling force, has 
no rightful place in the minister's life. To minister means 
to serve; and in the very act of becoming a minister, one 
at all conscious of what he is doing consecrates himself to 
service, abdicating all right to consider himself, or his own 
ease, or his own will, and pledging that he will think only, 
or most, of God and Christ and those interests whose ser- 
vant henceforth he is. Whoever becomes a soldier merges 
his whole selfhood into his duty as a soldier — to go where, 
to do what, to die when, the word of legitimate command 
may direct or require. In like manner, every minister, so 
far as he is a true minister, merges himself in Christ and the 
Church, and the service to which he is pledged — as of old 
every knight lost his own will in that of the lady whose 
plume he bore. / am nothing, — Christ and his cause are 



222 OU"R NEW DEPARTURE. 

everything, is the feeling that becomes uppermost in every 
heart that has, with any earnestness or sincerity, dedicated 
itself to the minister's work. It is the heroic spirit that 
is demanded ; and, on this account, every man fitted to be 
a minister is to this extent a hero. 

This heroism, this utter abnegation of self, is the one 
lesson of Christ's life and cross, as it is of the life of every 
Apostle. Our Lord's thought never was of himself, or of 
his personal preferences or ends, but always of the Gospel 
and of human help and salvation ; and Paul's chivalrous 
utterance ■ — in which spoke the spirit of all the Apostles — 
was, " Neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I 
might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I 
have received of the Lord Jesus to testify the Gospel of the 
grace of God." They all lost themselves in their work. 
Why should not we lose ourselves as entirely in the same 
work ? If we have the same Gospel, can it demand less of 
us than it did of them ? Are not the same interests con- 
cerned ? Do not the same motives appeal to us ? Have 
we not the same ends to further ? And if they only did 
their duty in all their ' earnestness, their self-renunciation, 
their willingness to sacrifice, and their entire identification 
of themselves with whatever could save souls and advance 
their cause, how can we do ours except as we emulate their 
example in a forgetfulness of self and of all self-aims and 
theories, in a consecration to our work, in an enthusiasm for 
our Church, and in an esprit de corps for our appointed plans 
and methods, that shall knit all our hearts into one, make 
everything else except our love and reverence for God sec- 
ondary, and commit us, soul and body, in solid phalanx, to 
whatever may be needful to give strength, unity and power 
to our Church, and thus to make it most effective as a Chris- 
tian instrumentality in the world ? 

No man should sacrifice his manhood, or renounce his 
self-respect, or sink himself into an echo or a tool, for any- 
body, or any cause. With such sacrifices God is not well 
pleased ; and, if they are ever asked of us, we may be sure 
that whoever or whatever requires them is not of Him. Nor 
are such sacrifices needful for the church enthusiasm, or the 
denominational esprit de corps, here insisted upon. All that 



OUR MINISTRY. 223 

is enjoined is a becoming subordination of self in allegiance 
to what is grander and more important, and simple earnest- 
ness and loyalty in honest and manly devotion to the canse 
which we profess to believe is the cause of truth and God. 
Is this too much to ask of any man ? 

Does some one say, I want to be large-minded and free, 
and such a devotion to any particular church narrows our 
sympathies, and renders a broad, free, catholic spirit impos- 
sible ? The most obvious reply, were we compelled to con- 
cede the narrowing thus affirmed, would be, Why, then, 
seek to connect yourself with any particular church ? But 
the better reply is, a denial of the affirmation. For how or 
why does a love for the church that best embodies his con- 
victions hinder a man from being, in freedom or largeness of 
sympathy, all that any earnest and honest man need to 
desire ? May not one love his country, and yet have room 
in his heart for a comprehensive sympathy with all man- 
kind ? May he not be a member of a family, faithful to 
every family duty, and yet be true to every broader relation ? 
Why, then, may he not be consecrated to his church, ardently 
seeking its extension and welfare, and at the same time be 
no whit less in breadth and catholicity as a large-hearted, 
independent, Christian man ? The verdict of experience is 
that he can be. Altogether too much sectarian exclusive- 
ness and bigotry, we have to confess, there has been, dis- 
honoring the Gospel, and fractionalizing and weakening the 
Church. But among the finest things in history — not sec- 
ond to any valor or sacrifice of heroes and patriots in the 
struggles of civil strife — are the records of those, of all 
names and forms of faith, who, while cultivating the kindly 
spirit of the Master, and according generous regard and 
recognition to all, have nevertheless, for the love of Christ 
and in the service of their own dear church, counted all pre- 
cious things worthless, giving up home and friends, welcom- 
ing danger, enduring persecution, and facing death itself, 
that they might convert souls, and extend what they have 
believed to be the truth. 

The esprit de corps and enthusiasm for our Church which 
I plead may henceforth be made indispensable for entrance 
into our ministry only require that we shall, in our turn, 



224 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

illustrate what all such, in their place, have shown to be 
possible. In no way narrowed, duly respecting ourselves, 
and with hearts full of a generous sympathy with every 
earnest effort to serve God and do good to man, we are 
to catch the baptism of their spirit — the spirit of Christ 
and of all the saints and martyrs who have lived and died 
for his sake, in a determined and self-forgetful zeal for our 
Church, which will render us willing to go anywhere, which 
will count no labor too exhausting and no sacrifice too 
great, if we can thus increase its vitality, widen its field of 
influence and augment its power. See what this zeal for 
Christ and this devotion to their Church are doing for oth- 
ers ! — for the Romanists, for the Methodists, for every 
church thus served, as men of ability and culture and del- 
icately reared women, no less than men of coarser grain 
and lower attainments, sever every domestic tie and turn 
their backs on all the attractions of cultivated society and 
desirable position and pleasant surroundings — often taking 
their lives in their hands, to go forth among the rude, the 
poor, the degraded, the heathen, that they may plant the 
banner of their church in new fields, enlighten the igno- 
rant, rescue the perishing, and advance the line of Christian 
light in its conquests over error and sin. Is there any rea- 
son why they should feel more, or do more, than we ? We 
are accustomed to claim that the Gospel, as we hold it, 
makes Christ more precious to us than he can be to those 
of a narrower faith : why should we not practically show 
that we love him at least as much as these, by a zeal as 
fervid, by a concern for souls as intense, by a missionary 
impulse as enterprising and heroic, by a readiness to labor 
and to sacrifice as great ? We should ; and no man is pre- 
pared to take up our work and to be a minister of our truth 
in the new and more spiritual Departure before us, as this 
truth suggests and demands, except as he is prepared thus 
to sink self and to prove his love for Christ, and his mar- 
riage, soul and body, to our Church, at any cost. 

The Universalist Church is nothing on its own account ; 
but as the organization of the world's grandest truth, and 
as a means of influence for the enlightenment and redemp- 
tion of men, it is of inexpressible worth. For this reason, 



OUR MINISTRY. 225 

next to God and Christ, and in their behalf, it deserves our 
supreme thought, and therefore the undivided loyalty of our 
hearts, and the service of all we have and are. All that 
we can give it is, at most, but a trivial offering, compared 
with what this Church includes and represents. A reason- 
able individualism we are always to maintain ; but what are 
we personally — our idiosyncrasies, our preferences, our 
independence, compared with the Gospel of Christ, and its 
claims on our wise, united, earnest labor ? Put the best 
man of us all into one scale, rating him at his highest im- 
portance, and this Church of ours, with its treasures of 
truth and splendid possibility, into the other, and which will 
kick the beam ? The Protestant principles of the right of 
private judgment, and of the final accountability of each 
soul to God, are great principles, never to be forgotten or 
disregarded ; but, like all great principles, they may be 
carried to extremes, and are subject to the limitations of 
reason, and social necessity and obligation. These limita- 
tions have heretofore been widely overlooked among us. 
We must see that they are not overlooked hereafter. Our 
business as Universalists is not simply to sow seeds, but to 
cultivate harvests ; not simply to see that ideas are dif- 
fused, but to organize them, that they may be consciously 
held and efficiently served : and how, as ministers, can we 
do this, unless we each waive something of our sharp indi- 
vidualism, that we may be merged — not into each other, 
but into our work, and, in the completeness of our conse- 
cration, and the contagion of our enthusiasm, and a forget- 
fulness of ourselves, flow together, to labor in a spirit of 
mutual accountability and service, for one common end ? 
Give us ' ministers of the right stamp ' in this particular — 
earnest, chivalric, full of love for Christ and the truth, and 
all else will come right ; but without such ministers, what- 
ever else may be in our favor, everything will go wrong. 
As, then, we love our Church, and desire its extension and 
perpetuity, so far as by wise provisions, wisely enforced, it 
is in our power to select and exclude, only such ministers 
should from this time forward be permitted entrance 
among us. 

15 



226 OUE NEW DEPAETURE. 

With these words, I leave the subject. It has grown 
upon me beyond my expectations. But it is vital to our 
future ; and no question of weightier moment presses upon 
us, than that which asks, Shall we have the New Departure 
to which we are summoned in this respect ? It is a great 
thing to be a Universalist minister, thoroughly furnished — 
morally, intellectually, spiritually, for the work which our 
Church needs and the time demands. No higher office can 
be aspired to ; no graver responsibilities can be assumed. 
Shall we who now fill the office becomingly feel this fact, 
and aim to be worthy of the place ? Shall due care be 
taken that those who hereafter ask our fellowship are the 
kind of men the office has a right to expect and require ? 
Better no ministers than ministers unsuited to the demand. 
Men — good men, of warm hearts, of large, well-trained 
minds, of souls awakened and consecrate, — chivalric, re- 
ligious, unselfish, these are what we should henceforth 
insist on, or keep our doors closed. And such men, filled 
with the Master's spirit, and bound together in a common 
enthusiasm for our Church, what may they not do ? What 
might we not look for as the result of their united labors ?. 

— As I ask these questions, there comes before me a 
scene which I try to think of as prophetic. It was in the 
church at Springfield, Mass., at the close of the Conference 
called to consider our condition and wants, and what should 
be done to make us, more perfectly, spiritually active and 
effective. Only ministers were present. The holy hush of 
the night was about us. The profound impression of the 
season we had spent together in counsel and in prayer was 
upon us. It was an hour of communion, of confession, of 
exhortation, of reflection and high resolve — the like of 
which none of us had ever known before, and such as few 
of us will ever see again. Old, middle-aged, and young, 
our hearts were all attuned to the same key ; and while 
each was thinking his own thoughts and living his own life, 
true to his individual being, one spirit was in all our hearts, 
and we were melted into one brotherhood of mutual love 
and labor, with one aim, one desire, one consecrating pur- 
pose. It was unity complete ; and as, with hands clasped, 
we knelt in a circle that stretched around the entire edifice, 



OUE MINISTRY. 227 

and the voice of supplication went up, asking God's ben- 
ediction of grace and strength, there was not one of us, I 
am sure, who did not feel, as he had seldom felt before, the 
special presence of God and the Saviour, and devoutly ask 
their help to live and labor ever after in the frame of soul 
which then possessed us. That kneeling, praying, united, 
thoroughly attuned company of brethren is evermore the 
symbol in my thought of what our ministry should be. 
God help us, that we may each do our part to fulfil it as a 
prophecy of what our ministry is. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE CHUKCH. 

Theoretically, Universalists, with rare exceptions, have 
always believed in the Church — that is, they have assented 
to it, have made no opposition against it ; — practically, they 
have quite generally neglected, or altogether ignored it. 
From the very first, indeed, there have been those, both in 
our pulpits and in our pews, who have strenuously urged 
its claims, our need of it, and our obligations with respect 
to it. But the most of our ministers, occupied in other 
directions, have had no enthusiasm in pressing its impor- 
tance ; and the great mass of those constituting our congre- 
gations, while saying in effect, If there are those who wish 
to have a Church, let them by all means be gratified, have 
regarded the whole subject with indifference, apparently in- 
accessible to any appeal concerning it. As the consequence, 
our parishes, or ' societies/ have usually been organized 
with little or no thought of a Church, and, once so organ- 
ized, have been content to go on, year after year, without 
one ; and when churches have been gathered, as was sub- 
stantially remarked in our Survey of the Field, the mem- 
bership, as the rule, has been altogether disproportionate to 
the congregation, with a lamentable absence of men even 
from this meagre number. It is easy to explain all this ; 
and the review of our history, in some of the preceding 
chapters, sufficiently suggests the explanation. Just here, 
however, we are more concerned with the fact than with the 
explanation. A great improvement has of late years been 
in progress ; but even now, while our last returns give us 
nine hundred and sixty-nine parishes, they give us but five 
hundred and sixty-five churches ; and with forty-three thou- 
sand seven hundred and seventy-one families reported — an 
aggregate in round numbers, reckoning five persons to a 
family, of two hundred nineteen thousand — we have reported 

228 



THE CHURCH. 229 

a church-membership only of twenty-seven thousand three hun- 
dred and seventy-nine, — about one eighth. These figures, 
probably, do not fully represent either our aggregate num- 
bers, or our actual church-membership ; but they furnish 
tolerable data on which to estimate the ratio of the latter as 
compared with the former. This ratio, it is true, might be 
smaller ; but is it at all what is demanded by the highest 
welfare of the interests we have in charge, and does it not 
reveal a failure on the part of a large portion of our people 
to appreciate the real nature of our work as a Christian 
denomination, and the kind of means by which alone it is 
to be done ? 

It is unnecessary to repeat what, in so many forms, has 
been set forth in the pages foregoing. But we cannot be 
too constantly reminded that spiritual life is the one final 
condition of religious power ; and, unless all that has here- 
inbefore been said is unfounded, incalculable detriment has 
come to our cause from the state of thought and feeling 
among us which this wide-spread neglect of the Church 
evinces, — has come to us, first, because we have so lacked 
the religious life and purpose which the Church expresses ; 
and, second, because we have so failed to make use of the 
Church as one of the appointed means of religious influence. 
Is not this a sufficient warning as to our need of a New 
Departure in this regard, and a corresponding call that we 
earnestly give ourselves to the effort to promote and deepen 
the tendency towards a better state of things ? To organ- 
ize churches, or to swell by any means the number of those 
formally connected with them, is not, let it be confessed, the 
highest duty of a Christian people. Church-membership, 
unfortunately, is not always a sign of elevated character, 
or of a consecrated life ; nor has any Church, probably, ever 
yet gathered into itself all the truly Christian souls of the 
congregation with which it has been connected. There are 
as good people outside formal Church associations as there 
are inside ; and there are not a few who talk much about 
Religion and the Church and the Lord's Supper, who would 
honor Christ and the Christian cause far more, though they 
never joined a Church, if they talked less of these things, 
and lived nearer to the Saviour, more loyal to his cause. 



230 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

But, notwithstanding these things, the fact none the less 
remains, that the Church is the appointed method for the 
organization of Christian faith and purpose, and an impor- 
tant aid in Christian culture ; and those who believe in 
Christ, loving and meaning to serve him, are in their true 
relations to God or to him, to the conditions of their own 
best life, or to the world, only as they are in sacred cove- 
nant with God in church-membership. 

There are three senses in which the word Church seems 
to be used in the New Testament: — 1. As synonymous 
with our race, according to the teaching of the Gospel that 
Humanity is one, — the body of which Christ is the head : 
as when the Apostle says to the Ephesians (v. 25, 27) that 
" Christ loved the Church, and gave himself for it, . . . 
that he might present it to himself a glorious Church, not 
having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it 
should be holy and without blemish ; " and to the Colos- 
sians (i. 11, 18), "He is before all things, and by him all 
things consist, and he is the head of the body, the Church." 
2. As meaning the whole organized family of Christian 
faith : as when our Lord says, referring to Peter's confes- 
sion of his Messiahship, " On this rock I will build my 
Church ; " and as when the Apostle says to the Corinthians 
(1 Cor. xii. 28), " God hath set some in the Church, first, 
apostles/' etc., and to the Ephesians (iii. 21), " Unto Him 
be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus, throughout all 
ages." 3. As indicating any body of believers, formally 
pledged to Christ, and organized for his service, with condi- 
tions of membership, means of improvement, and rules of 
discipline : as when our Lord said, speaking of the course 
to be pursued in the case of an offending member, " Tell it 
unto the Church" (Matt, xviii. IT):; and as the word is 
most commonly employed. And besides these, though I 
am not aware of any instance in which the New Testament 
literally so employs it, — unless Heb. xii. 23, be such an 
instance, — there is still another sense in which we are 
taught by the spirit of the New Testament to use the word, 
— viz., as meaning the whole multitude of awakened and 
reconciled souls, — the vast company of the redeemed on 



* THE CHURCH. 231 

earth, and in heaven, the Church invisible : a sense nowhere, 
perhaps, better illustrated than in Charles Wesley's fine 
hymn, — 

" The saints on earth and those above 
But one communion make : 
Joined to their Lord in bonds of love, 
All of his grace partake. 

"One family, we dwell in him; 

One Church, above, beneath, — 
Though now divided by the flood, 
The swelling flood of death. 

" One army of the living God, — 
To His command we bow; 
Part of the host have crossed the flood, 
And part are crossing now." 

But while these different senses of the word are all to be 
borne in mind, and we are, on occasion, to make due ac- 
count of them, the one meaning technically and most com- 
monly intended by the Church is, the organized religious 
life of Christendom, — Christianity institutionally embodied. 
In the broadest sense, it is never to be forgotten, the Church 
is not specially a Christian institution. It is " the Church 
of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth " — 
the symbol of faith in God, and of righteous purpose to- 
wards Him. As such, it has existed from the hour that a 
human heart was first awakened towards God, and found 
other hearts to associate with it. Spiritually, this Church 
has included all of every age and nation, whatever the 
name or form of their worship, who, with any conception 
of the one true God, have aspired towards Him, and given 
themselves to His service. But organically, inasmuch as 
such are to be found mainly in the line of those to whom 
God's special revelations have come, it is in this line that 
the descent and history of the Church are to be traced. As 
far back as Noah, he and his family constituted the Church. 
To them succeeded the patriarchs, and to them, at length, 
the Jewish nation, as the people in covenant with God to 
recognize and obey Him, followed, in the fulness of time, 
by the Christian Church. The Church may thus be said to 
be coeval in its existence with that of our race, completing, 



232 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

with the family and the state, the trinity of primary forms 
or institutions in which it has pleased God to organize man- 
kind. The family organizes our domestic life ; the state, 
our civil relations ; the Church, our religious nature, wor- 
ship and work ; and if the family, or the state, can in any 
sense be spoken of as a Divine institution, with the authority 
of God for its sanction, in the same sense, the Church may 
be so pronounced. Nor can a claim be set up, or an argu- 
ment be made, as to the legitimacy, necessity, or authority, 
of the family or the state — both which are on all hands 
conceded to have their foundation in nature itself — that 
cannot be paralleled and equally maintained in behalf of the 
Church. The Romish Church is organized on this postulate. 
Hence — for one reason — its power. It is one of the 
weaknesses of Protestanism that it has to so large an extent 
overlooked this fact — for, so far as it is overlooked, loss in 
respect to all those ends which the Church is intended to 
serve must ensue. The thing for us to understand, if we would 
attain to any measure of religious power, is the thing which 
has thus been so widely overlooked ; and if we are to real- 
ize any such future as a Christian people as we easily may, 
we must renounce our looseness and indifference concerning 
the Church, and, awaking to perceive what it is as an 
ordinance of God and as one of the. means of Christian effi- 
ciency, must put ourselves into solemn covenant with God 
and the Saviour in it, enforcing its authority, availing our- 
selves of its influence, and systematically employing every 
instrumentality which it supplies. 

That the Church in this sense has the warrant of Christ's 
sanction and appointment — to go now no farther back — 
no intelligent person, reading the New Testament, can 
doubt. The "little flock" which he gathered on such 
stringent conditions shows us its origin ; and the churches 
everywhere formed by the Apostles, as they went forth mak- 
ing converts to Christ, show us how it was continued and 
extended. Some have argued that it is not necessary to 
form churches, on the ground that the Church, in the New 
Testament sense, is the whole congregation. But it is 
certain that the Apostolic churches were something more 
than mere congregations. They were distinct, formally or- 



THE CHURCH. 233 

ganized bodies, composed only of those openly committed 
to Christ, and responsible for discipline — usually embra- 
cing all acknowledged Christians, it is true, but only because 
all such regarded it as a duty thus to identify themselves 
with Christ, and were not recognized as really Christians 
until they had done so. To these can be lineally traced the 
churches of the present day. 

It was impossible that Christianity should be preached as 
a living word without some such association of those believ- 
ing it. Every live thing in this world, sooner or later, gets 
organized. A germ cannot be vital without assuming some 
form. A living embryo necessitates a body in which the 
living principle shall clothe itself. And the law of animal 
and vegetable existence, this is none the less true in the 
realm of ideas. Wherever men are in earnest, having living 
and positive convictions, whether in business, science, poli- 
tics, or religion, organization in due time follows — loose and 
informal, or compact and thorough, according to their defi- 
niteness of aim and earnestness of purpose. The Church 
of God through all history, — the Christian Church as 
Christ organized it, and as it has since existed, is simply the 
result of this general law — as the family and the state 
are each the result of a similar necessity in their respective 
domains. 

The parish, or religious society, comes about under this 
law as a partial organization of Christianity. It is the or- 
ganization of Christianity as a theory, or as a public social 
interest, — the natural flowing together of those agreed as 
to the importance or desirableness of religious institutions, 
though they may not yet be ready to enter into formal per- 
sonal covenant with Christ as their Redeemer ; and the fact 
that no such ' society ' exists where there is material for it, 
is demonstrative evidence that there are no positive favor- 
able convictions among the people touching the subject. 
The Church is the same thing in a higher form. It is the 
organization of Christianity as a moral conviction. As such 
a conviction, taking hold of the conscience and the heart, 
Christianity is a very living and positive thing. As the con- 
sequence, wherever two or more persons, thus penetrated 
and vivified, 

" Whose faith and hopes and hearts are one," 



234 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

are brought into circumstances of possible recognition, they 
will find each other ; will gather around the same altar ; 
will kneel together at the foot of the same cross, in confes- 
sion of the same Saviour ; will recognize a mutual obligation 
to aid and watch over each other ; will pledge themselves 
to mutual fidelity, and use together whatever can help them 
to higher attainments in the Christian life ; will ask each 
other's counsel, and, recognizing the authority inhere ntf in 
such an association, will mutually submit themselves to re- 
buke and discipline, if, on any account, rebuke or discipline 
shall become necessary. And this, occur where it may, is 
a Church — a living branch of the One Church. Absolutely, 
neither written covenants, nor formulated creeds or canons, 
nor outward ordinances are essential to its existence. For 
purposes of convenience — that the platform of thought on 
which it rests, and the responsibilities assumed in uniting 
with it, may be definitely stated and understood, articles of 
faith and covenants are desirable ; and since we need aids 
in religious culture as in everything else, ordinances have 
their importance ; and because in religion no more than in 
business can the best results be attained without system and 
well-understood law, rules and methods are requisite if work 
is most effectually to be done. But the Church may exist 
independent of all these, — a spiritual conjunction of souls ; 
and it does in fact so exist independent of these things, or 
it can have no existence with them. 

There are those who do not like the name. But this 
is of little moment. The thing is the chief concern ; and 
wherever the conditions meet, this will appear, demanding 
some designation. Christ called it the Church, and it may 
be doubted whether his nomenclature can be improved. 
But whether we call it by this name, or by some other, or by 
none, the fact will be the same. Bars may be put up, and 
bolts interposed, to prevent. Those concerned may be for- 
bidden under heavy penalties to come together. A place 
to meet may be denied them ; and they may be hedged 
about by every hinderance and restriction which bigotry or 
malice can invent. It will all avail nothing. They will 
come together. Bars will be overleaped. Penalties will be 
defied. Caves and by-places will become their temples for 



THE CHURCH. 235 

worship. The street and the market will serve them as 
places of communion. And despite all efforts to the con- 
trary, there will be hours when their hearts will mingle and 
burn in sacred sympathy, and when they will find help, en- 
couragement and joy in the sweetness of mutual counsel, or 
in the uplifting power of mutual prayer. 

It is, every way, most unfortunate that this natural and 
necessary origin of the Church is so almost universally over- 
looked, and that a conception so foreign to the fact prevails 
instead. The idea of most persons is that the Church is al- 
together formal and arbitrary ; — a kind of religious pound 
which somebody has invented, into which men and women, 
found at large in this world, are driven for safe keeping, 
until Death calls for and transfers them to Heaven. But all 
such ideas — in which even some church-members more or 
less participate — do great injustice to the Church, and 
utterly fail of any thought of its real nature and purpose. 
It is no walled enclosure, from which any are shut out. It is 
rather an open field, into which all gather whose hearts are 
in sympathy with Christ and with each other, and into 
which all are at liberty to gather who are attracted thither ; 
a spiritual household, open to all who are moved towards it, 
and who have the preparation which will make them at 
home in it. No doubt there are those who feel under an ar- 
bitrary restraint in the Church ; who find life in it irksome ; 
to whom it is a kind of pound, shutting them in from pur- 
suits and associations which, at heart, they prefer, and all 
whose tastes and desires beat against the imaginary walls 
within which they are confined, as an imprisoned bird beats 
against the sides of its cage. But such persons have no 
real church-membership. Their church-connection is simply 
external and seeming, into which they have been brought 
by a fear of hell, or by some motive equally foreign to that 
which can alone put one actually into the Church. The 
genuiue'bond of church-union is not outward, but inward. 
It is a bond of spiritual sympathy, — the confession of 
spiritual attractions : just as it is no artificial contrivance 
but a subtile and unseen force, which unites a drop of water 
to its kindred drops, or assimilates into one body the sepa- 
rate particles of any human frame j and only those thus 



236 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

drawn into the Church as the home of their hearts, and 
whose outward church-membership is the sign of Christ's 
work in their souls, and of their inward consecration to him 
and their unity with all who love him, are really in the 
Church, or can be cited to illustrate what the Church is, or 
what it is fitted to do. What but this is the inmost mean- 
ing of the fact that no sooner does one become religiously 
awakened, than he begins to seek religious associations and 
to feel drawn towards the Church as his spiritual home, — ■ 
while no sooner does his heart grow cold and his religious 
interest decline, than his sympathy with the Church declines, 
and he more or less withdraws from it ? 

Christianity itself is founded in human nature ; and only, 
we may be sure, because the Church is thus in accordance 
with nature, having its origin and foundation in this ineradi- 
cable law of spiritual affinity and attraction, did our Lord 
recognize it as the fitting organization of his religion, and 
make membership in it at once the privilege and the duty 
of all who love him. And if, amidst the hazards and sacri- 
fices which discipleship cost in his time, and the times imme- 
diately following, so many were made heroic in superiority to 
all considerations of personal safety, under the impulse of a 
faith and love that clasped him as Lord, and thus found 
themselves flowing together in the sympathy of a com- 
mon purpose to own and serve him, how should it be in 
these later times, when no hazards bristle and no such sac- 
rifices are required ? Unfortunately, however, while it is 
true that all in whom the work of Christian faith and spir- 
itual awakening has proceeded up to a certain point, are 
instinctively, by this law of spiritual affinity and attraction, 
impelled to find corresponding associations in the Church, 
the far greater number professing faith in Christ fail to reach 
this point of awakening, and so, failing to feel this propulsion 
towards the Church, fail to find their way into it as they 
ought. This is the sad fact concerning the great majority 
of Protestant Christendom, and is the fact with which Protes- 
tantism is called to deal as it never yet has been dealt with. 

Romanism has solved one side of the problem of the 
Church. It has shown what a power for good — and for 



THE CHURCH. 237 

evil — the Church may be, as an absolute authority domi- 
nating reason and subordinating our whole nature to a pas- 
sive faith. Gathering " into its perfumed and symbolic 
shrines those believing natures, those leaning and devout 
souls to whom a too naked Protestantism denies any food 
for the religious imagination/ ? — obtaining the possession 
and mastery of its votaries so as to command their loyalty, 
money and attendance on public worship, as no other form 
of Christian faith ever has done, and producing, under favor- 
able conditions, some of the sweetest and saintliest lives 
that have ever blossomed amidst the selfishness, or shed 
their fragrance into the moral miasms, of the world, it has 
nevertheless proved a failure as an element of popular life 
and general civilization, because, in the very nature of the 
authority it asserts, inimical to free thought, to popular ed- 
ucation, to a rugged self-reliance, to enterprise, to civil lib- 
erty, and so unfavorable alike to material, intellectual, 
moral and social progress. The beggary, ignorance and 
general shiftlessness of all Catholic communities, in the 
ratio of their vassalage to Church-rule — to say nothing of 
the lawlessness and barbarism of large numbers whom it 
fails to hold, or of the pauperism and crime with which it 
is so shockingly flooding our American society — give the 
sad but unanswerable verdict of history against Catholicism, 
alike as an interpretation of the offices of the Church and as 
a ministry to the spiritual needs of the world. 

Can Protestantism more successfully solve both sides of 
the problem ? Can it show what the Church is divinely 
appointed to be as a guiding and helpful influence, appeal- 
ing equally to reason and to faith, and harmonizing them in 
a Church-life, the blended product of the two ? Morally 
and religiously, this is the Providential question of the 
hour. Thus far, it has to be confessed, Protestantism has 
but complemented the failure of Catholicism, by solving the 
problem on the other side. While it has deserved to have 
many things said in its praise, and has shown itself espe- 
cially favorable to liberty, to self-respect, to a busy and thriv- 
ing material enterprise and to intellectual progress, it has at 
the same time shown how little mere brain or argument can 
do to serve the highest spiritual ends. It has demonstrated 



238 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

that appeals solely to reason, or to logic, are, in their way, 
as unproductive of good, and as likely to issue in evil, as 
appeals only to faith. It has fostered self-assertion ; has in- 
duced denial, and cultivated doubt. Unlike Catholicism, 
educating the people to feel themselves strangers and for- 
eigners to the Church, it has led them to feel that the Church 
is nothing to them, or they to it, till some supernatural cri- 
sis in their experience puts them into new relations to God, 
and makes it proper that they should claim to be among His 
saints. It has thus destroyed the hold of the Church on 
the people's hearts ; has induced the feeling that it is for 
those perfected, and not for those needing help ; and so has 
not only divested it in the popular apprehension of anything 
like authority, but has weakened its appeals, destroyed its 
attractions, and made it something quite else than the spirit- 
ual home and beneficent aid which it was designed to be. 
In a word, stripping away the tinsel and the drapery with 
which Catholicism has upholstered religion and the Church, 
Protestantism has left the first a dogma rather than a senti- 
ment, and made the latter only a form instead of a living 
and pregnant fact. As the result, the Church as it stands 
to-day in the thought of the great mass of Protestantdom is 
a mere voluntary human association, with no special sanc- 
tion or authority, into which it is simply well enough for 
those to go who feel so inclined, and not a Divine institu- 
tion, sacred and venerable, with essential uses as the chan- 
nel of spiritual influence, and rightfully demanding the 
homage, membership and service of every soul believing 
in God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Is Protestantism equal 
to the task of correcting all this — its own work, and of so 
interpreting the Church and its claims and purposes as to in- 
sure for it its legitimate hold upon the reason and faith of 
the people ? If not, Protestantism is to prove as signal a 
failure as Eomanism, because proving incompetent to en- 
throne religion in the life of the people, and thus to organ- 
ize them for the service of Christ in his Church. 

It is not, in my judgment, an open question whether what 
is called ' evangelical ' Protestantism is thus to fail. Ex- 
cept as it modifies its fundamental ideas, and commits itself 
to new expositions, — both of the truth of Christ and of the 



THE CHURCH. 239 

relations and uses of "the Church, —it must fail. The Past 
sufficiently attests this ; and one of the purposes of the Uni- 
versalist Church, in the Providence of God, I believe, is so to 
interpret what the Church is, and so to press what it de- 
mands as, in this failure of ' evangelical ? Protestantism, to 
supply what the time in this respect requires. Universal- 
ism harmonizes reason and faith, and is thus able to present 
an ideal of the Church equally satisfying to both. It, and 
it alone, gives us the Church republicanized ; and only the 
right awakening of Universalists to the meaning of the truth 
they profess, and therefore to the meaning and offices of the 
Church, is required to insure a result so much to be desired. 
Hitherto, as was sufficiently intimated in the opening of this 
chapter, Universalists have not given the Church the place 
in their regards to which it is entitled. On the contrary, 
some of the worst influences of Protestantism in this respect 
have come to fruit among us ; and owing to the indifference, 
to the unjustifiable self-distrust, or to the prejudices and mis- 
conceptions thus begotten, we have been conspicuously be- 
hind most others in the signs of Church-interest and Church- 
life. 

On the one hand, we have had those — no very large 
number — who have decried or neglected the Church alto- 
gether, and, on the other, those who have so advocated it 
as to make it of little or no account. The former on va- 
rious grounds, have said, We will have no Church ; the lat- 
ter have said, Let us have the Church, but, to conciliate 
opposition, or secure members, have lowered the standard 
of its requirements, and cheapened the significance of its 
vows. I have known large additions to some of our Churches 
thus procured — only to increase the Church in form, while 
lessening it in moral power, placing those entering it in a 
false position because ostensibly committing them to that in 
which they saw no meaning, and for which they had neither 
sympathy nor care. The result has been disastrous in many 
ways. Henceforward all this must cease, or ere another 
century, though our truth will remain, we shall denomina- 
tionally have run our course. The world needs, and must 
have, the Church as the perpetual symbol of religious ideas, 
and as the means of communicating spiritual life. There 



240 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

can be no permanence of religious influence or results with- 
out it ; and the people who are religiously to possess the 
Future are the people who, having the most of truth and re- 
ligious life, shall best comprehend how to make the Church 
legitimately a power, and use it accordingly. This posses- 
sion of the Future will be ours, if we do not blindly and per- 
versely throw it away ; but it can be ours only on this con- 
dition, viz., that we organize ourselves in the Church spirit, 
and seek to become a Church after Christ's ideal. 

Not that we are to dispense with our parish organizations. 
They are desirable and important in their place. Some 
among us are urging that they should be discontinued, and 
that the Church should be the sole primary body. But our 
General Convention, at Gloucester, committed itself very 
decidedly against this view. As a part of the Report on 
the revision of our fundamental law there submitted, a draft 
for the Constitution and By-laws of a Church organized on 
this plan was presented ; but the Convention almost unani- 
mously refused to sanction it, or even to allow it to be pub- 
lished. It thus unmistakably declared in favor of the parish 
and the Church, as together constituting the best method 
for our primary organization ; and though as one of the 
committee who reported the draft referred to, I was person- 
ally disposed, in deference to those who think such an or- 
ganization best, to submit the draft for their use, my very 
strong conviction was that the system which the Convention 
thus approved is on every account wisest in principle as 
well as most expedient in practice. The spirit of our Amer- 
ican institutions demands that every one sympathizing with 
our ideas, who contributes to the support of a congregation, 
shall be entitled to a voice in the management of its affairs ; 
and it is easy to see that the larger the number who can be 
actually enlisted in our work the better. Nor is there any 
reason why a good man, fully committed to our ' Confession/ 
and liberally paying his money to maintain a parish, should 
either be debarred the privilege of an active participation in 
its business because he does not yet feel prepared to enter 
the Church, or be compelled, for the sake of having this 
privilege, to connect himself with the Church before he is 
ready. The temporalities of a congregation are equally the 



THE CHURCH. 241 

concern of all connected with it, and, on a proper basis, the 
accruing rights should be denied to no one. 

But while the parish should be continued, it should on all 
hands be understood that it can in no way fill the place, or 
answer the uses, of the Church. True, as a Christian body, 
it ought always to mean Christian faith and moral upright- 
ness, and by whatever name it may be called, it is not a 
Christian parish if care is not taken that it shall mean both 
these ; but these, in the nature of the case, are all that it 
can mean. The Church alone stands not simply for faith, 
but for religious experience and purpose ; for the love of 
Christ and consecration to him ; for an awakened sense of 
God, and a formal assumption of religious vows. Nor, it 
deserves to be said, is it among the least of the reasons why 
the parish and the Church should be distinct bodies, that 
only thus can this purely religious significance of the Church 
be best maintained. Where there is no parish, and any 
voice in the administration of the financial and business af- 
fairs of the congregation can be had alone by Church-mem- 
bers, a motive is furnished to induce Church-membership 
that is wholly foreign to its real purpose. On this account 
most Churches organized on this basis have those in their 
membership whose hearts have never had the slightest re- 
ligious awakening, and whose membership means only that 
they desire, or that others desire for them, the right to par- 
ticipate in the offices and business of the organizations ; and 
I have heard of instances in which Churches so constituted 
have been recruited by considerable numbers solely to carry 
some measure for which they were willing to vote. What 
meaning or worth has church -membership so induced ? 
Were there nothing else, the argument thus suggested 
would seem to me enough to determine judgment against 
the Church as the sole body, and in favor of the dual method 
so decidedly recommended by our Convention. In this par- 
ticular I have made a study of the subject through a pastor- 
ate of several years where the Church is the sole organiza- 
tion, and, as the result, all my former convictions have been 
strengthened, and I am more than ever satisfied of the 
wisdom of the Convention in approving the method it did. 
The Church has a peculiar character, and is not what Christ 
16 



242 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

means by the Church except as this is maintained. As the 
Church, it is God's specific means for organizing souls in 
consecration to Him. It may have adjuncts and auxiliaries 
— the more of the right sort the better. But it alone em- 
bodies Christianity for its best work either in those who be- 
lieve it, or for its warfare against sin, and is the conduit 
through which flows the largest measure of enlightening and 
redemptive power for the quickening and salvation of the 
world. And this being so, nothing, on the one hand, should 
be permitted to impair or qualify this distinctive purpose 
of the Church, and, on the other, every individual stirred to 
any becoming sense of God, or to any love for Christ, should 
instinctively gravitate towards it, as the heart of a child 
towards the home of its love. 

It is in the due recognition and emphasis of these two 
facts that we are to see our special work in respect to the 
Church ; and only as we give them this recognition and em- 
phasis, and thus distinctly and systematically cultivate the 
Church spirit, and work to Church ends, can we either so 
interpret the Church itself, or so press its demands, as to 
make our Church the required answer to the needs of the 
time. The important inquiry demanding our attention is, 
How shall we best do this ? and on what grounds shall our 
claim for the Church be built, and the obligations towards it 
be enforced ? 

The ultimate end to be aimed at, it is clear after what has 
been said, is, to put the Church into its legitimate place 
with the family and the State, in the thought and affections 
of the people. Catholicism has done this, after its fashion ; 
and herein, for one reason, as was just now said, has lain its 
power. It has suffered nobody reached by its teachings to 
think of the Church as artificial or adventitious, or as some- 
thing in which they could possibly have no concern. The 
Church is organic, primal, its position has been — no less 
than the family or the State. On this foundation Romanism 
has always built. Hence, it insists, every child born of 
Catholic parents is born into the Catholic Church, just as it 
is born into the family of which it is a member, or into the 
State of which it is a subject or citizen ; every convert to 
its creed is, of course, by virtue of his or her conversion, 



THE CHURCH. 243 

another recruit for the Church ; and every child born out of 
it on whom it can lay its hands in baptism is by this act in- 
ducted into its guardianship, and becomes its possession. 
Catholicism knows nothing of outsiders among those bearing 
its name, or to whom it can by any means lay claim. As 
the result, every boy or girl of Catholic parentage, every 
child acquired, every proselyte, every person of whatever 
age, within the line of its instruction, is trained to feel, I 
am of the Church : the Church belongs to me, and I belong 
to it ; all its associations and traditions, all its saints and 
holy martyrs, all that makes it honorable because of what it 
has done, and venerable as the daughter of God and the 
bride of the Lamb, are but parts of my possessions, as all 
its gorgeous ritual, and all its precious privileges, and all 
the truth of which it is the keeper, and all its historic days 
and festivals are for my help and salvation ; and because of 
what it thus is to me, and of what I am to it, I am to love, to 
honor, to serve it as I do my parents, my country, my God — 
am to glory in it as my chief pride, counting it my highest 
duty to live faithful to it, and willing, if need be, to die for it. 
And thus instructing and impressing all whom it can 
bring within its influence, what wonder that Catholicism so 
grasps and holds its millions by ties stronger than hooks 
of steel, or that it wields so tremendous a power because 
the object of an attachment so intense, and of a loyalty so 
supreme ? In all this, it is easy to see, there are elements 
of superstition, and of spiritual domination and slavery, 
which, building on reason as well as on faith, we totally ab- 
jure ; nor is it ever to be forgotten, in speaking of Catholi- 
cism and its influence, how low and arbitrary are the mo- 
tives on which it largely relies, nor what flocks of its 
adherents, so devoted to their Church and its worship, have 
only the hollowest form of religious service, while religion 
itself seems to have no place, as a principle, in their thought 
or life. But after all the abatements thus required, — and 
they are many, — here, in substance, if there be any reality 
in the Church, is the true theory concerning it and our rela- 
tions and obligations to it; and it is for us, if we would 
have our Church a Church in fact as well as in name, care- 
fully to study the Romish Church, and its methods, and the 



244 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

secret of its power, and, so far as we can in accordance 
with the better genius and nobler aims of our faith, to act 
upon them. Only on this condition is anything possible to 
us as a Church. 

There are those who are greatly enamoured with the ex- 
ternals of Catholicism — its sacerdotal pomps and proces- 
sions, its imposing ceremonies, its music, and all the sensa- 
tional appeals through which it addresses eye and ear and 
the religious imagination. In these, they suppose, chiefly 
resides its power, and in an imitation of these, they would 
have us believe, is our only hope of making any Church 
really churchly and effective. But such, I am satisfied, 
mistake, looking too much on the surface. These things, 
no doubt, have their influence — perhaps more than some 
of us suppose. But the ritual, drapery and elaborate sacer- 
dotalism of Rome are mainly of the past. Only its bet- 
ter spirit is of all time. In this, therefore, we are to find 
the chief explanation of its power ; and it is this that we 
most need to study and to copy. I have no doubt, in- 
deed, that we might with great profit relieve the barrenness 
of our Protestant church-edifices by the introduction of 
appropriate pictures and statuary, and might add much to 
the religious helpfulness of our services by congregational 
singing, and by whatever else would suitably tend to make 
them services for worship, and not mere preaching-meetings. 
But I am fully persuaded that any man, or any body of 
men, will in vain essay to transfer the gowns and robes 
and chasubles, the genuflexions and ecclesiasticisms, the 
reading-desks and ritual of Catholicism or of High Church 
Episcopalianism, into the Church that is to come, or attempt 
to put the fresh, rationalistic life of Protestantism into the 
effete forms of Romanism. The rising David cannot be 
clothed in the armor of the doomed Saul. The Church of 
the Future is to be a vitalized Protestant Church, and not a 
rejuvenated Roman Catholic Church with the Pope left out. 
New ideals *must clothe themselves in new forms. David 
must wear his own armor, and do his better work in his 
better way. But excluding all that is inconsistent either with 
our ideas of motive, or with our notions of liberty and the right 
of private judgment, and speaking only of what is unobjec- 



THE CHURCH. 245 

tionable to us in Catholicism as to the spirit and practical 
sagacity of its methods, as to Church-ideas and underlying 
principles, as to winning, formative, holding power, these, as 
Catholicism has combined and availed itself of them, are es- 
sential and permanent, and have rendered the Romish Church 
one of the most wonderful organizations for effective religious 
work — perhaps the most wonderful that the world has ever 
seen. These we can, and should, copy ; and so far as we do 
so, educating our people and others into the accruing concep- 
tion of the Church, and its work, and its relations to the re- 
ligious life of the world, and the authority it is entitled to ex- 
ercise, and the uses it should be made to serve, we shall ap- 
proximate the true ideal of the Church as to form, and find 
ourselves fulfilling the offices and wielding the fitting power 
of a Church as to fact. Then Universalists will feel something 
more than a mere temporary local or personal attachment to 
particular parishes or ministers. Wherever they go, they 
will carry with them a sense of permanent and organic 
membership in the Universalist Church, binding them to 
identify themselves with the nearest Universalist fellowship, 
and not permitting them, as they now so often do, to drift 
on removal into other connections, or to be lost in no con- 
nection. Then we shall have a Church fulfilling all Church 
offices, " baptizing infancy, not as a family custom, but as 
a Church sacrament ; confirming the children, and taking 
them into its more immediate bosom as they attain adult 
years ; making both marriage and burial rites of the imme- 
diate altar ; and giving back to the Holy Communion some- 
thing of the sanctity which two centuries have been trying 
to dispel, without gaining anything except the prospect of 
its extinction." The Episcopal Church and some other 
Protestant Churches are to some extent realizing this ideal. 
Our ' Children's Sunday/ baptizing our children as the chil- 
dren of the Church, to be in due time confirmed in their 
Church privileges, is a step in the right direction. Let 
other steps as fast as practicable follow ; and in due time 
the world will see the result in the Universalist Church, 
organized and thoroughly doing its work as a Church 
indeed. 

In the mean time, keeping this constantly in view, and 



246 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

sedulously shaping our action and methods with reference 
to the end to be thus reached, we are to neglect nothing 
that will duly direct attention to the Church, and keep it 
before the people as the objective point of all our efforts, 
so fat* as forms and outward helps are concerned. Our one 
purpose and earnest labor must be to familiarize all whom 
we can reach with the obligations to a religious life ; to 
quicken and educate our children and people into a becom- 
ing sense of what the Church is, and what are its claims ; 
and to press on them the fact that only as what has hereto- 
fore been called the Universalist denomination is spiritually 
consolidated into a Church, whatever other organizations 
we may have, can we be the people God is calling for, or 
enter into the inheritance offered us. 

There are various grounds on which we may do this. 
Among them may be mentioned, — 

1. The fact that respect for the example and authority 
of Christ and his Apostles demands a regard for the Church 
and identification with it. That he instituted, and that 
they continued, the Church, and that alike he and they call 
all who believe on him into it, the New Testament every- 
where shows. How, then, if we confess any obligation to 
heed their teaching, can we neglect what they so enjoin ? 
Mere conditions or accessories may, indeed, be changed, or 
disregarded, according to circumstances ; but the essential 
institution itself — how can we fail to accord to this what it 
calls for, without in effect declaring that we think ourselves 
wiser than they from whom it comes ? "I can be as good 
out of the Church as in it," some are fond of saying. But 
why then did Christ institute it? He did not establish 
it for a few, nor except for some good reason, we may be 
sure. It is no more necessary for one than for another ; 
has no claims on one that it has not on all ; and if one may 
be justified in its neglect, or in thinking it of no use, then 
all may be, and the Church may properly cease for lack of 
members ! But this cannot be. The outward Church is 
the body and symbol of the spiritual family of which Christ 
is head, and of which all united to him in faith and love 
are members. He knew what was in man, and this out- 
ward Church was instituted, his action certifies us, and the 



THE CHURCH. 247 

Lord's Supper was given — not as indifferent things, mere 
forms, which Christians are at liberty to employ or not, as 
they may choose, but only because there were essential uses 
for them to serve. And if they have such uses in the case 
of one, they have them not less for all ; and if one is under 
obligation to defer to Christ's judgment as to what was 
necessary and best, and cannot fail to do so without disre- 
spect to him and those who succeeded to the administration 
of his kingdom, why is not the same equally true of all ? 

2. Moreover, how is Christianity to be organized in its 
positive, spiritual purpose, without the Church ? It is 
" nothing until an institution." Reference has sufficiently 
been made to the distinction between the parish and the 
Church. The former, as I hope has appeared, is expedient, 
and often necessary, for its specific uses ; but it is a mere 
legal body, meaning simply faith in the truth of Christianity 
and an upright moral life. The Church embodies Chris- 
tianity in its highest meaning — as a religious experience, a 
religious purpose, a power for religious consecration. Is 
Christianity to be denied such representation ? Everything 
else, as we have seen, is organized : shall Christ alone fail 
to have the advantage of the association of his friends in 
direct and personal committal to him ? 

3. Still further : Out of the Church, there is, unfortu- 
nately, little keen sense of obligation to live in personal 
nearness to Christ, in a religious life. Church-membership, 
it is true, creates no such obligation. The obligation is 
original and absolute, preceding- all churches and all church- 
vows. Church-membership is merely the confession of it, 
and the pledging of one's self to try to live as it demands. 
But without the Church, there is seldom any such confes- 
sion/ A general sense of moral responsibility does, we 
know, exist outside the Church, but till the Church is en- 
tered, all purely religious obligations set lightly on the 
conscience. No pledges to a religious life are understood 
to be given, and no expectations of such a life are felt to 
be warranted. This is a state of things, we may well say, 
that should not exist. But it does exist. Who that is out 
of Church-relations, reading these pages, does not feel 
somewhat less bound to live piously and prayerfully than 



248 OUK NEW DEPARTURE. 

though the vows of church-membership had been solemnly 
assumed ? Uniting with a Church, one is really no more 
bound to such a life than before ; but it is at once felt that 
responsibility is intensified, if not created. A formal pro- 
fession has been made ; pledges of consecration have been 
plighted ; certain expectations are felt to be justified ; and 
naturally, one has a corresponding sense of obligation to 
live accordingly. 

And should there not be something to bring us into this 
state of feeling ? Who does not need all the healthful 
restraints and all the legitimate aids and stimulants to right 
living that can possibly be supplied ? Who will say that it is 
a matter of small consequence that the Gospel has been given 
us, or that Christ has done so much for us ? And if these 
are not small things, who will say that we do not need all 
that can in any way fitly serve to keep us sensible of them, 
deepening our consciousness of obligation, and kindling 
and impelling us to careful and studied Christian living ? Is 
not the Church, then, a necessity ? 

4. Nor is this all. Independent of this increased sense 
of responsibility which it nurtures, the Church is an impor- 
tant help towards the Christian life through the closer and 
more sympathetic relations into which it brings its members ; 
through the occasions for prayer and religious conversation, 
counsel and encouragement which it supplies ; through the 
mutual watchfulness which it enjoins ; and especially through 
the communion of the Lord's Supper to which it invites. 
Without the Church, there would be none of these things, as 
the Church gives them. And how much would thus be lost 
in the loss — especially of the Lord's Supper — which, 
without the Church, would inevitably ensue ! 

These are some of the considerations in view of which 
the Church is commended to our attention, and by which it 
is made the duty of every Christian believer, and especially 
of every Universalist, to be in its membership, in earnest 
and working sympathy with its purpose to conquer and 
absorb the world. But the great consideration, after all, is 
that which has been the underlying thought of this chapter, 
— viz., that the Church is the natural and organic relation 
of souls born into the kingdom of God through the minis- 



THE CHUECH. 249 

try of His Son ; that it is the channel through which God 
communicates His Holy Spirit and saving power most 
directly and potently for the enlightenment and redemption 
of souls ; and that only in it can we put ourselves into best 
contact with spiritual influences, or best express our faith 
and love and Christian purpose. This is the fact that 
renders all other considerations comparatively unimportant, 
and that, giving the Church its high vantage-ground as an 
ordinance of God, summons all who believe in Him, or in 
the Saviour He has sent, to say, with one heart and one 
voice, — 

"I love Thy Church, O God ! 

Her walls before Thee stand, 
Dear as the apple of Thine eye, 
And graven on Thy hand. 

"For her my tears shall fall; 
For her my prayers ascend ; 
To her my cares and toils be given, 
Till toils and cares shall end. 

" Beyond my highest joy 

I prize her heavenly ways — 
Her sweet communion, solemn vows, 
Her hymns of love and praise." 

True, the Church may be abused ; — what good thing may 
not be ? Its obligations may not always be kept ; — what 
obligations are ? It may be joined in self-righteousness and 
with airs of pretentious piety; — what institution may not 
have unworthy members ? It may be said — it is sometimes 
said — that the Church is exclusive, and sets up improper 
distinctions ; but whose fault is it if it makes distinctions, or 
if the many are out, and only the few are in it ? The 
doors are open ; all are under equal obligation to comply 
with the terms of membership, and are invited and urged to 
enter. Who are to be blamed if all do not enter ? Those 
who identify themselves with the Church, in the true church- 
spirit, make no pretensions to a superior goodness, — put on 
no airs, — set themselves in no way above their neighbors. 
They simply say, We believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
desire to consecrate ourselves to him. They go into the 
Church not because they think themselves good enough, or 



250 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

wish to separate themselves from others, but because they 
wish formally to commit themselves to Christ, and desire the 
help of the Church to make them better. And who will 
question their right, or deny them the privilege of doing 
so, especially when their plea with each one who has not 
done so is, " Come thou with us, and we will do thee 
good ? " 

The subject is large and invites still further unfolding. 
But I will not extend the chapter. Even from this imper- 
fect presentation of it, is it not clear that there is far more 
in it than many bearing our name have ever imagined, and 
that in no particular are we more urgently called to a New 
Departure than in our estimates, work, and denominational 
conscience with reference to the Church ? Grant all that 
can be alleged as to the improving tendencies of thought 
among us in this regard, how long could we go on as we 
are, with our present ratio of church-membership and our 
present average of heedlessness and neglect, and have any 
standing, or exert any power, as a people of God ? The 
question God is asking us is, whether we will be true to our 
ideas. The Church is one of the means through which we 
are to give our answer. What shall it be ? God help us, 
that the answer be right. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 

A great change has taken place in the general sentiment 
of our body touching the Sunday-school. In consequence 
of that reaction from the methods as well as the doctrines 
of the old churches, which has been several times referred 
to in the progress of these pages — and without a constant 
recognition of which no person can to much purpose study 
our history, because missing one of the most important 
keys to it — there was a time when Sunday-schools were 
energetically opposed among us. They were regarded as a 
priestly and sectarian device to stay the progress of more 
rational and Scriptural opinions, and to fasten the chains of 
' orthodoxy ' upon the children and youth of the land : — 
objectionable in principle, because designed unwarrantably 
to bias the thought of those under their influence, and 
especially objectionable in practice, because a portion of the 
plot to create ' a religious party ' in our politics. This 
opposition, however, on various grounds, gradually gave 
way — at first, mainly on the ground of expediency, that 
we might checkmate ' our opposers ' by keeping our 
children out of their hands ; and since then, as juster 
estimates have prevailed, we have had numerous new 
departures in respect to the subject, until now no Church 
is more appreciative than ours of the intrinsic importance 
of the Sunday-school, or of the soundness of the princi- 
ple on which it rests, — or more zealous to use it, — or 
more earnest in discussing the question of methods, — or 
more occupied with the effort to make the school in the 
highest degree effective. Nowhere, probably, can there be 
found a change so marked, — nowhere, certainly, a change 
more marked or more favorable, in the growth of right think- 
ing and feeling in these regards, than we thus exhibit. 

Under these circumstances, it would be only a waste of 

251 



252 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

words to use room here to set forth the history of the Sun- 
day-school, or to speak of its importance and great possible 
usefulness, or to dwell on the necessity of availing ourselves 
of every possible instrumentality towards making the most 
of it. All these, and others of a kindred nature, are points 
concerning which so much has been said that none of those 
into whose hands this book is likely to fall need information 
or suggestion concerning them. Nor is there now such 
special occasion as when this work was planned, to urge as 
a New Departure the particular recommendation to which 
this chapter is to be devoted. It has, fortunately, already 
arrested considerable attention, and has commanded, during 
the two years past, earnest pens and tongues, so that what 
I have to say on this point must be regarded as a humble 
contribution to help on a tendency of thought and labor 
which has already begun, rather than an initiation of it. 

The one thought here to be presented concerns the pur- 
pose of Sunday-school instruction, — the paramount, absorb- 
ing end to which the school, and all it has, and all it can 
be made, should be devoted. Preliminary to this, however, 
there are two other points concerning which many years of 
observation incline me to offer some hints. 

1. Our venerable and good Father Balfour, though finally 
in favor of Sunday-schools on the ground of expediency which 
has been spoken of, — i. e., as a means of self-protection, 
was never, I think, an advocate of them, in themselves, and 
always regarded them with some misgivings, for the reason 
that he feared their effect in inclining parents to neglect the 
religious instruction of their children at home. And who 
that has considered the subject will hesitate to say that he 
had good reason for his fears ? That altogether too many 
parents do permit the Sunday-school to take the place of 
their personal labors, contenting themselves with feeling 
that, since their children ' go every Sunday to Sunday- 
school/ there is little occasion for them to concern them- 
selves about their moral, and especially their religious, train- 
ing, is known to us all. Herein — if I may so say — is the 
great possible mischief of the Sunday-school : — for that 
anything which serves to render parents less keenly alive to 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 253 

their own obligations to ' bring up their children in the nur- 
ture and admonition of the Lord/ or to lessen, no matter 
how slightly, their sense of responsibility in this respect, is, 

— in this, and so far as it does it — mischievous, no one 
with any becoming conception of parental duty will dispute. 

On some accounts, the parental are the most solemn and 

— in a sense — most appalling of all the obligations that 
can rest upon us. For, consider what a child is as it comes 
fresh from the hand of God, — an immortal soul, with so 
much depending for itself and others on what it becomes, 
and with issues so tremendous, stretching out, we know not 
how widely, — stretching on, we know not how far, as the 
consequences of its life, and then think how serious a thing 
it is to take it for education and guidance, — to give it im- 
press and direction, to form its tastes, to determine its 
habits, to shape its character, and so, under God, in a large 
degree, to decide what shall be its experience and temporal 
destiny, and to what purpose of good or ill it shall be in the 
world ! One may well tremble, and ask God's special grace 
and help, in assuming" such a trust. And yet, how few 
seem to have any due comprehension of it ! How lightly, 
how thoughtlessly, with what total carelessness and uncon- 
cern, most to whom it is given take it upon themselves ! It 
is one of the saddest things in the world that it is so ; and 
seeing to what unreflective arms children commonly come, 
and how they are accepted and trifled with, we have occa- 
sion only to wonder that more lives are not perverted, and 
more souls spoiled and lost. 

Were it, then, a necessity of the Sunday-school, in how- 
ever remote a degree, that parents should transfer to it their 
duty, and that it should thus foster an unconcern and neg- 
lect of which there is already, by so vast a sum, too much, 
not only should we be justified in Father Balfour's misgivings 
concerning it, but the number, I think, would be small who 
would not, with intense emphasis, unite to say, Away with 
it utterly as it now exists, and let us have parental fidelity 
instead. In such a case, those who have no virtuous homes 
and no parents to instruct them, and whose only opportunity 
for religious training is that which the Sunday-school sup- 
plies, would somehow have to be otherwise provided for ; 



254 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

but as now constituted, the Sunday-school would be no 
more. Happily, however, the Sunday-school in no way ne- 
cessitates such parental neglect, — only furnishes the occa- 
sion for increased thoughtfulness and more systematic atten- 
tion ; and the father or mother who, instead of accepting 
its help, permits it to become a substitute, and so to induce 
carelessness and neglect, is not simply recreant to duty, 
but is further responsible for abusing instead of using a 
beneficent means of Christian education. Every parent mak- 
ing any pretence to conscience or Christian faith, — above 
all, every Universalist parent should count it a privilege 
as well as an obligation to sit down, some time each week, 
with the child, or children, God has given, and talk about the 
lesson of the Sundays past and that of the Sunday to come — 
making it a point to see that every lesson is perfectly com- 
mitted, and that each child, having been helped to under- 
stand and feel the instruction which the lesson is designed to 
convey, is ready to ask the teacher such questions as it sug- 
gests, and thus prepared to appropriate whatever the teacher 
or the school may further supply. Would all parents but 
do this, what a work would be achieved ! It is one of the 
chief hinderances and discouragements of faithful teachers 
that it is not done. Let not those who fail to do it be sur- 
prised if, in after years, the bitter cup of children's way- 
wardness and irreligion be put to their lips. 

Shall we not have more thought among our parents touch- 
ing this subject ? Far too many of our children and our 
schools are suffering from the neglect and the substitution 
to which I refer. Must they, — shall they continue to 
suffer ? Will not our parents resolve on a New Departure 
in this particular ? Napoleon said that France most of all 
needed mothers ; and the great need of this country and the 
world, to-day and always, is the right kind of homes. And 
considering our own children, and their relation to the 
future of our Church, were I called to specify what, for 
their sake, and the Church's sake, and the world's sake, we 
most need, I should say, A profounder consciousness of the 
meaning of fatherhood and motherhood ; a keener sense of 
the solemnity and almost awfulness of parental responsi- 
bility ; and a more earnest and prayerful endeavor to make 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 255 

Home as the nursery of character what it ought to be. 
Home is the chief power, after all. In vain, comparatively, 
our Sunday-schools and our Churches, if we have not Homes 
sanctified to God and the Saviour, and made fragrant by 
daily religious living. 

Nor is this all. Not only, our parents should consider, 
is any child irretrievably the loser so far as it is denied — 
shall we not rather say, defrauded of? — the helps to a 
good life which its home should give, but it is impossible 
that our Sunday-schools shall ever be what they may be, until 
our parents heartily enlist with our pastors and teachers in 
the effort to give them their due character and power. 
" The teacher must have the coincidence of the parents," 
said a certain Major Malaprop, some years ago, making the 
customary committee-man's address at the annual examina- 
tion of a public school, not many miles from Boston. He 
meant co-operation. And what he wished to enforce, and 
what all friends of education agree must be enforced, as a 
condition of the highest usefulness of our common schools, 
needs no less to be enforced in respect to our Sunday- 
schools. Only as parent, teacher and school work together 
are the best results possible ; and so far as any parent with- 
holds the needed co-operation in careful home instruction, or 
fails, because of the Sunday-school, to give a child the re- 
ligious guidance and training which the parental office im- 
plies, not only does the child suffer and is God defied and 
nature outraged, but a course is pursued which — supposing 
the duty would be performed 'if there were no Sunday-school 
— renders the existence of the Sunday-school a calamity in- 
stead of a blessing. 

2. The Sunday-school is simply one of the auxiliaries of 
the Church, — one of the means through which the Church 
works, or through which its members or friends work to 
church-ends. Of course, then, it should be supported and 
used accordingly. But who of us does not know that it is 
not so supported and used ? On the one hand, far too many 
in our congregations and churches treat it as if it were in no 
way a general concern, but something outside, — a separate 
affair, on whose meetings, or anniversaries, they are not to 
be expected to attend ; something to be maintained by such 



256 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

' young people ' and others as are disposed so to use their 
time, and that must pay its own way, and get help as it can, 
with no right as an integral part of the parish or church 
to look to it for support. On the other hand — and to a 
considerable extent, in consequence of the state of feeling 
just described, there are those connected with our schools, 
who conduct them on much the same assumption. The 
idea of unity and identity is lost. The school is managed 
as if it were in itself an end, and as if it and the cliurch 
or the parish were — not one, but independent and rival 
organizations. I have heard of superintendents, whose aim 
was to get up Sunday-school cliques, or factions, for the 
furtherance of special Sunday-school projects, with little 
or no regard to the common welfare. I have heard of 
teachers, who habitually absented themselves from public 
worship, saying, " 0, I don't care for the church or the 
congregation ; my interest is in the Sunday-school. " To 
the same effect, children are, in many places, taught to con- 
sider the Sunday-school as their church, and are given to 
understand that, when its sessions are closed, the church- 
services have nothing for them, and that they are* at liberty 
to go home. And in still other cases, I have known the 
Sunday-school to become so far a 'hobby/ and so to absorb 
the leading thought and energy of a congregation, that, 
while its affairs were looked after with great discretion and 
earnestness, all parish business and interests were left mainly 
to take care of themselves, and so of course to come to se- 
rious harm. 

Can it be necessary to say that all this, whether on one 
side or the other, is wrong and tends only to evil ? If the 
Sunday-school has a right to exist at all, it clearly has a 
right to demand the sympathy and support needful that it 
may exist to best effect, — and this not simply from one, 
or a few, but from all. But the claim to these is all that it 
has a right to assert. It should know its place, and keep 
it. It is an appendage, an instrument, and this only. It is 
a means, not an end. Attempting to be more than this, it 
is an intrusion and an impertinence. It has no indepen- 
dent existence. It is not a church for children, or anybody 
else — and false impressions are made, and harm is done, 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 257^ 

when, for any purpose, it is so represented. It is in no 
sense a distinct, or separate, interest — - and whoever under- 
takes to administer or to serve it as if it were, not only ex- 
hibits a culpable ignorance as to its true office, but is false 
to every purpose for which it has a right to be, no less than 
to the broader concerns to which it is subordinate. As a 
religious. institution, the Sunday-school is nothing of itself. 
The church alone makes it legitimate, and gives it signifi- 
cance. The church is the parent ; the Sunday-school is the 
child. The church is the fountain ; the Sunday-school is 
one of its streams, — or, if we liken the church to the 
ocean, Sunday-schools are some of the rivers flowing into 
it. It is altogether subsidiary and dependent, designed to 
serve the church, and having any claim upon the church 
only because its office is to serve it. 

Our Sunday-schools can never be most useful until these 
things are severally understood and properly acted upon. 
Why can they not be so understood and acted upon in ref- 
erence to all our schools, as they already are in the case of 
some of them ? No words can exaggerate the possible 
power of the Sunday-school. For this reason, it should be 
made a regular department of the parish or church work. 
It should every year, no less than the minister or the choir, 
be financially provided for, and so be saved the shifts and 
expedients to which it is now so frequently compelled to 
resort. It should, as much as the rental of pews, be looked 
after by some Advisory Committee of the parish or the 
church. It should never appeal in vain to the members of 
the congregation for teachers or workers, or for their attend- 
ance on any occasion when its claims are to be presented, 
its reports submitted, or its work discussed ; and last, but 
not least, it should by common consent be understood to 
have a right to insist on the attendance of every child in 
the parish, old enough to attend, and no less, of every 
youth, and of every adult who can possibly arrange to par- 
ticipate in its lessons : — for the Sunday-school will never re- 
alize its true ideal so long as it is supposed to exist only for 
children, and fails to be regarded as a School of Christian In- 
struction, designed equally for all who can learn, however ma- 
ture or aged. In a word, the Sunday-school should be taken 
11 



258 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

close to the hearts of all our people as one of the most im- 
portant of our church-instrumentalities, and should receive 
every practicable sign of an appreciative sympathy from all 
who can, in any way, contribute to its numbers or useful- 
ness. Whoever fails to give it what it thus deserves and 
demands, fails of duty in respect to one of the most vital 
conditions of our increasing hold upon the world. 

And not less should those actively connected with our 
schools be mindful of what is demanded of them. Appreci- 
ating the real relations and work of the Sunday-school, they 
should diligently seek to make it tributary to the growth of 
the congregation, to the increase of an interest in public wor- 
ship, and thus to the enlargement of the church. Regard- 
ing it as their first duty to make their instructions as profit- 
able as possible to those under their charge, they should 
feel that they are the servants of the church, and that the 
one question for them is, not how to build up a distinct or 
partisan school-feeling, or how to make the most of the 
school, as if it were or could be the rival of the parish or 
church, or as if it were in itself something to work for, but 
how most perfectly to identify the school with the common 
work and welfare of the parish and the church, and how to 
make the most of it for parish and church ends. Can we 
not have these things earnestly and practically recognized 
alike by those outside and by those inside our schools, and 
thus see our Sunday-schools everywhere becoming what, as 
helpers and auxiliaries of the parish and the church, they 
might and ought to be ? 

But these observations have outrun my design. They 
are, as I said, only preliminary. The question to which I 
wish here particularly to direct attention is, What is the final 
purpose of the Sunday-school ? 

Whatever may have been true of exceptional minds, 
thinking of what the Sunday-school ought to be, it is to be 
doubted whether there has been, until recently, any clear 
idea in answer to this question in the minds of those who 
have done our Sunday-school work ; and it is quite as much 
to be doubted whether any considerable number of those 
who are even now doing it would be found to have concep- 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 259 

tions at all definite upon the subject. It is well to have 
Sunday-schools, the idea has been and quite too commonly 
still is, because they have come to be recognized as very 
proper things, and because it is really desirable that our 
children should know something about God, and the Bible, 
and the truths and places and events and people and 
duties of which the Bible speaks. And so, as was intimated 
in our second chapter, we have for years been teaching, in 
a very mixed and miscellaneous way, Scripture Geography 
and Biography and Archaeology and Doctrine and Duty, and 
have accepted as teachers any tolerably worthy young per- 
sons who were willing, or who, by persistent solicitation, 
could be coaxed, to enlist in the work, whether they were 
in the church, or out, — whether they had any clear and 
intelligent views of doctrine and duty, or not. And all to 
what effect ? It would doubtless be too much to intimate 
that no good has thus been done. But it is not too much 
to say that, as the rule, our scholars have failed to derive 
any religious benefit from what has thus been given them, 
beyond the moral impression which the singing and general 
exercises have made. 

I have had three children as scholars in our Sunday- 
schools — one or more of them in three different schools ; 
and as I have talked with them since they in their turn 
became Sunday-school workers, their testimony has agreed 
in this — viz., that, except in the case of one or two 
teachers, they never gathered anything from the Sunday- 
school, save in the way of these general impressions, and 
as the lessons were occasions of their learning something 
at home ; and one of them was for months taken from 
a Sunday-school of which I was pastor, because the class 
of which he was a member was, beyond any remedy of 
mine, so left to itself after the merest parrotry of the words 
of the catechism, that, in the class, he was getting much 
injury and no good. And these children were by no means 
specially unfortunate. On the contrary, their teachers were, 
most of them, among the best in the several schools. Their 
experience, therefore, only illustrates the rule. The state 
of things it illustrates was never, perhaps, peculiar to us ; 
but it has existed among us to a greater extent than in the 



260 OUR NEV^ DEPARTURE. 

schools of other churches, because we have at no time been 
so advanced as to methods, and especially because we have 
failed of any such distinct idea as they have had as to the 
end which Sunday-school instruction should be made to 
answer. We have been improving in this department of 
our labor as in others. Probably it would not now be pos- 
sible to find superintendents or teachers employed so utterly 
without regard to religious character and conditions as they 
were twenty, or even a less number of years ago — particu- 
larly in any of our older and better schools. But' even 
now, to what extent would a careful census of our schools, 
not excepting our oldest and best, show their instructions 
to be directed to any purpose more specific than this — viz., 
to give the pupils some useful information about the Bible 
and the places, the people and the events, it records, and 
to help them to some intelligent conceptions of truth and 
duty as Christianity expounds them ? 

But is this, or any part of it, at all as it should be ? Was 
it for any such teaching that Christ died, or that the Gospel 
was given ? To what end does, the Bible teach ? In his 
letter to the Colossians (i. 28), speaking of ' Christ in them, 
the hope of glory/ Paul says, " Whom we preach, warning 
every man, and teaching every man, that we may present 
every man perfect in Christ Jesus." And who of us does 
not know that this sums up the burden of the whole New 
Testament as to the purpose of all Christian instruction ? 
Seed is sown for harvests. Leaven is hid in meal for re- 
sults. So, not less, all teaching in the name of Christ, 
whether in the pulpit, the home, or the Sunday-school, is, 
or should be, with sole final reference to religious character. 
Christianity is a ministry of spiritual quickening and re- 
demption ; and we have no right, in whatever capacity we 
serve as teachers, to use Christ's name anywhere, or to do 
anything professedly under the auspices of his religion, ex- 
cept with these results definitely in view. 

Here, then, is something for us to think about, — a New 
Departure to which, with one consent, all our Sunday- 
schools should at once commit themselves. Our Sunday- 
school instruction should henceforth aim at the specific sjriritual 
results which it is the distinctive purpose of Christianity to 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 261 

secure. In this, as in many other things, our ' evangelical ' 
friends set us an example well worth our following. Their 
guns are always aimed at one mark. Their business, under 
God, they believe, is to save souls ; and conversion is the 
process through which, as they hold, salvation is to be 
reached. To convert souls, therefore, is their one engross- 
ing purpose, whatever they do — their purpose in the Sun- 
day-school, as iin everything else. Hence their Sunday- 
school reports, whether for a term, a year, or a series of 
years, always mention the number of scholars who have 
been ' hopefully converted ; ? and whatever else they may 
have to report, no matter how favorable as to new scholars, 
or punctuality, or perfect lessons, or successful 'excursions/ 
'concerts/ 'exhibitions/ 'festivals/ or ' good social times/ 
they regard their record as seriously incomplete, and feel 
that they have lamentably come short of their real work, 
unless they are able to say that some of their scholars have 
been religiously awakened, and thus have been converted, 
and led to 'give themselves to God and the Saviour in the 
Church/ 

And what they thus seek, according to their conception of 
Christian truth, is precisely what we should seek, according 
to ours. Why should we be less interested in such results, 
or seek them less earnestly than they ? True, as was said 
in the chapter on the subject, we have no faith in their 
theory of conversion, and see no necessity for any such 
rescue as they mean by salvation. But, as was shown in 
the chapter referred to, we do not the less believe in con- 
version. Irreligion, worldliness, sin, is not a state with 
which we have any more reason than they to be content. 
An awakened spiritual consciousness, harmony with God, 
the sweet sense of acceptance with Him, is not a thing to 
be any less desired by us than by them. Nor do we the 
less recognize the reality or the necessity of Christ's saving 
work. On the contrary, to none are Christ and his awaken- 
ing and redeeming offices so much, as related to the intrinsic 
need of the soul, as to us, and those in agreement with us. 
None have reason to insist with such strenuousness as we 
on what these two words, Conversion and Salvation, really 
mean, and to the faith or apprehension of none others are 



262 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

the processes they signify so actual, so vital, so absolutely 
and eternally indispensable, as the conditions of highest 
spiritual welfare. As we have heretofore seen, there is no 
entrance into the best life but through the gate, or expe- 
rience, which the Bible calls Conversion ; and anywhere, 
only spiritual darkness, insensibility, and death are possible 
to any soul except as Christ quickens and saves it. What, 
then, shall we do ? These being the facts, are they facts to 
be forgotten or disregarded, especially where the plastic 
nature of childhood is committed to our hands ? Are we 
pardonable if we do not specifically and anxiously labor 
for the ends which we profess to regard as so essential ? 
Or, can any Sunday-school, ostensibly representing these 
facts as the solemn verities they are in our theory of Re- 
ligion, be justified before God, or at the judgment-seat of 
Christ, or at the bar even of serious and earnest public 
opinion, in giving them no attention, or in failing to make 
them the inspiration and basis of such special labor as they 
suggest and demand ? 

This is a subject on which I will not presume to speak for 
others. But, for myself, I cannot but hold it solemn and in- 
excusable trifling, to gather our children and youth for what 
is called ' Sunday-school instruction/ Sunday after Sunday, 
and year after year, to dribble into their minds smatterings 
of various superficial and non-essential knowledge, with little 
thought and no effort in the direction of that particular re- 
sult which the New Testament everywhere presents as the 
grand purpose for which Christ came into the world, and 
without which any soul, whatever else it may have, fails of 
the experience into which it is the sole ultimate design of the 
Gospel to lead it. Christianity means the instruction and 
awakening of souls, that the life of God may flow into them ; 
and this definitive purpose of Christianity determines what 
should be the purpose of every Sunday-school, and the 
prayerful effort of every Sunday-school teacher. Every 
child, every youth, every person, of whatever age, connected 
with a Sunday-school is a soul to be awakened and saved, 
to be made conscious of sin, and helped to penitence and 
the resources and joys of the regenerate life, — or, if awa- 
kened, is a soul to be helped and encouraged into higher 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL, 263 

and clearer views of truth and duty, into a deeper expe- 
rience, into a more perfect union with Christ, into a sweeter 
communion with God. I hold, therefore, that no session of 
a Sunday-school should pass, whatever else may be in hand, 
without some eifort on the part of every teacher, and of all 
whose office it is to give tone to the service, to further this 
work of religious awakening, or help, in the hearts of the 
scholars. Instruction is good. Well-recited lessons and 
pleasant talk about them are good. Good singing is good. 
Anything that legitimately helps to give interest and life to 
a school is good. But all these are simply incidental. Not 
for any one, nor for all, of these does the Sunday-school, as 
a school of Christ, exist. It exists to convert and save 
souls. It exists spiritually to kindle and arouse those who 
can be brought within its influence ; to impress them with 
a becoming sense of God's love and of Christ's self-sacrifice ; 
to move them by the lessons and appeals of the Cross ; to 
teach them not only to understand the theory of conversion 
and salvation, but to feel the necessity of being themselves 
converted, and of asking with solicitous concern, realizing 
how much is at stake on their right action, " What must I 
do to be saved ?" It thus exists that it may make its pu- 
pils spiritually wiser ; stimulate them to prayer, and the read- 
ing of the Bible, and attendance on public worship ; aid them 
to self-mastery and self-denial ; induce them to cultivate an 
amiable, genial, kindly spirit in their homes, and in all their 
relations and intercourse ; and so help them to be live, earnest, 
consecrated men and women in Christ Jesus. 

Nothing among us has for a long time seemed to me more 
gratifying in itself, or more promising as an indication of 
our growing religious development, than the ' Young Peo- 
ple's Prayer Meetings,' in which the religious life of some 
of our parishes has of late found nutriment and expression. 
And the thought, aspiration, and purpose which have come 
to fruit in these meetings show us, as I conceive, precisely 
the product which, on the experimental and emotional side, 
our Sunday-schools should bear, as, on their practical side, 
they should come to fruit — and can be of any real Christian 
service only as they do come to fruit — in rightly-poised 
and high-toned character and devout and holy living. They 



264 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

are our spiritual nurseries, designed to send out those who, 
as men and women, shall enrich the world with the graces 
and virtues of a sanctified character, while eager to do its 
righteous work under the leadership of Christ in covenant 
with God in the Church. 

Taking this view of the Sunday-school, it hardly needs to 
be said what should be taught or done in it, or what its li- 
braries, or papers, or entertainments should be. The test 
question with respect to these things, as of everything else 
connected with the school, is, What is their religious influ- 
ence ? or, What bearing have they on the religious purpose 
which the school must be made to answer ? What the ver- 
dict must be, in an application of this test, as to the kind 
of teaching which our schools have usually furnished, is 
clear. We have had much discussion of late concerning 
the ' One Lesson System. 7 As a system, I have no doubt 
that alike the argument and the testimony of experience are 
on its side. But as to the point before us, the ' system ■ is a 
matter of no consequence. If the same themes and lines of 
instruction are to be continued, the ' One Lesson System ' 
will avail no more to answer the real purpose of our schools 
than the incongruous system which we have heretofore had. 
If Scripture History, Geography and Biography and similar 
topics are to furnish the staple of our teaching, with a little 
spice of doctrine and morals mixed in, however the teaching 
may be given, the lack of religious point and result will be 
the same. In their place, indeed, these things are unques- 
tionably important ; but the place for them is not the Sun- 
day-school, except as they are made incidental and tribu- 
tary to its main business. As well might one apprenticed 
to a house-builder or a carriage-painter be taught about the 
history of forests and all the processes of their growth, or 
about the old painters and their subjects, and be led through 
all the fields of knowledge, however indirectly related to 
these callings, while the house or the carriage was entirely 
neglected. In the case of such an apprentice, as he leaves 
his master, the important question is not, how many other 
things has he learned, but, what kind of a workman has he 
been helped to be. Equally, the inquiry of chief interest 
concerning a Sunday-school, as its pupils go out from its 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 265 

classes, is, not how much ground of Bible knowledge has it 
led them over, but, what has it done to convert and save 
them, and how far has it helped to impress them with the 
importance of Religion, and led them, as quickened and con- 
secrated >souls, into the discipleship of Christ. And any 
Sunday-school which has no such results to show, however 
large or prosperous, whatever else it may have done, or 
however numerous the pleasant social purposes it may have 
served, though it may have done some good, and so may de^ 
serve not to be condemned as a cumberer of the ground, is 
a grievous failure so far as the sole final purpose of a Sunday" 
school is concerned. 

How many Sunday-schools have we that are answering 
— or that are making it the one purpose of their existence 
to answer — this real end of their existence ? Alas, how 
few ! Do we not need, then, — shall we not have, the New 
Departure in this regard to which the highest welfare alike 
of our children, our Church, and the world is calling us ? 
The hope of our Church is in its Christianized children — as 
the hope of the world is in the Christianized men and women 
that Sunday-schools and churches are putting into it. In 
some schools, by some teachers, it is our pleasure to say, 
this Departure has already been taken ; and as I pen these 
words, there rises before my thought the class of one such 
teacher, whom it is my privilege to know, who is finely il- 
lustrating what this Departure is, and what it would do for 
us. He is a young man, himself penetrated to the quick of 
his being with the thought of God and living a life of prayer 
and of conscientious devotion to every duty. His class is 
large. When he took it, it was in some respects one of the 
least desirable classes in the school ; but, coming to his 
work with his heart in it, he soon inoculated the class with 
a new life. His one business, he feels, is to lead his boys 
to the Saviour. Though going carefully over the letter of 
each day's lesson, therefore, he does it only to get at its 
spirit ; and, gathering the heads and hearts of his scholars 
about his own as he talks, as bits of steel cluster about a 
magnet, whatever the topic, he makes it somehow suggestive 
of thought about God, or Christ, or goodness, about the 
perils of sin or the attractions of a religious life. He talks 



266 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

much about prayer and the importance of cultivating a 
sense of God's constant nearness. Inviting his scholars' 
confidence, he induces them to open their hearts and con- 
fess their faults to him, and thus obtains a familiarity with 
each one that enables him to see what the boy most needs, 
and how he can best adapt instruction to his case. He vis- 
its his scholars at their homes, so making the acquaintance, 
and enlisting the sympathy and, to some extent, the co- 
operation, of the parents. He seeks opportunities to con- 
verse privately with each scholar, that he may speak with 
the freedom and faithfulness which he counts it his duty to 
exercise. In every possible way, in school and out, he so 
identifies himself with his boys as to secure their affection, 
and then uses the power he thus acquires to direct their 
hearts to God, to pledge them to daily prayer, to awaken 
a love for the Saviour, and to educate them towards the 
Church. In these several ways, so far as he can, he seeks 
to advance them every Sabbath somewhat into that life of 
devout thought and purpose, in the ripening of which they 
will become the reflective, reverent, religiously consecrated 
young men that he feels himself charged of God, by His 
help, to make them. Who can estimate his power or the 
power of any such teacher, or compute what our schools 
would at once become if all our teachers were actuated by 
a like purpose, and were as carefully and prayerfully labor- 
ing to the same end ? Some imagine that such religious 
teachers must repel their scholars. On the contrary, the 
rule is, as this young man illustrates, that such teachers 
most interest and attract. The school of which this one is 
a member has many faithful and excellent teachers ; but into 
no other class is there such an anxiety to enter as there is 
to enter his. 

Shall the lesson of this case, and of similar cases, be 
heeded? The Sunday-school, even with those among 
whom it has reached its best estate, is yet in its infancy. 
Its capacity for usefulness has only begun to be perceived. 
Its full possibilities nobody understands. Systems and 
methods are to be developed, of which even the wisest do 
not now dream, multiplying its resources and increasing its 
grasp and power. And as what is now potential becomes 



THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 267 

actual in it, it is more and more to place the world in its 
debt, because of what it will do for the churches that 
wisely use it, and for our Christian civilization as one of its 
mightiest and most beneficent factors. Out of it are to 
come — - who can tell what ministers, what statesmen, what 
men and women of all ranks and orders of gift and char- 
acter, to make life, home, business, politics, society wit- 
nesses of Christ's increasing presence in them ? Is the 
Universaiist Church among the churches which it is thus to 
feed, invigorate and bless ? I trust in God that it is. I 
am sure that it is. With our simple, rational, satisfying 
faith, so fitted to the comprehension of the young, and so 
full of power, rightly administered, to stir all hearts, kin- 
dling them into religious life, it may be the means of bless- 
ing us, if we so will, beyond all others. But it can so 
bless us only as this New Departure is taken, and as, learn- 
ing from our own experience and the experience of others 
what are the best methods, we make all methods and all 
instructions focalize in this one great end — the religious 
awakening, the conversion and salvation of souls. Then, 
growing constantly wiser, our schools will each year be- 
come larger in numbers, because more vital and enthusiastic 
in spirit, and more effective as a Christian influence, be- 
cause possessed by a more definite Christian purpose — 
training each generation, in its turn, as fresh recruits for 
Christ, honorably and valiantly to bear the banner of the 
Cross, and, through their own conversion and salvation, to 
help on the conversion and salvation of the world. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

MAN AND WOMAN. 

God has halved our Humanity into man and woman ; and 
only as the halves are united, of the twain making one, can 
our Humanity be complete. Herein is the wonderful pe- 
culiarity of Christ. In him, "there is neither male nor 
female." By this, primarily, it was doubtless meant to say 
that he knows no distinction of sex, as he knows nothing of 
condition or race, among his disciples, because, in the fel- 
lowship of a common faith, and in the equal blessings and 
privileges of a common salvation, all are one in him. But 
since he is alike the example of both, the statement must 
also have been designed somehow to include the idea that 
as the humanity common to all nations is summed up in 
him, so not less are the distinctive qualities of the two 
sexes. He is not simply a perfect man. In character, he 
is just as much the perfect woman also. How else could 
he be an example to women ? 

No human being, either as a man, or as a woman, distinc- 
tively, can fitly represent the globular wholeness of our nature. 
Solely as a man, Christ could not. Only a life perfectly blend- 
ing man and woman can do this ; and this is what Christ — and 
he alone — does. He is the union of the two sides of our 
nature, — the consummate flower of its finest and grandest 
possibilities ; not simply a man, but Man, « — Humanity come 
to full expression in all that makes it at once most human and 
most divine. Analyze him morally, and see — on the one 
hand, the unconquerable force ; the tough, persistent will ; 
"the iron firmness, resisting temptation ; the courage and self- 
possession that never quailed ; the integrity that never pal- 
tered ; the justice that never gave way to any mere senti- 
ment or weakness of feeling ; " the vigOr, energy and 
strength that made him always so stout and invincible, so 
calm and self-sustained, — and on the other hand, the love 

268 



MAN AND WOMAN. 269 

so fond ; the tenderness so sympathetic ; the tears so ready 
to flow ; '■' the considerate care which provided bread for the 
multitude, and said to the tired disciples as with a sister's 
rather than a brother's thoughtfulness, ' Come ye apart, 
and rest awhile ; ' " the shrinking sensitiveness ; the retiring 
modesty, withdrawing from needless observation ; the ner- 
vous susceptibility to sorrow and pain ; the meek and pa- 
tient submissiveness to a superior will. Here, plainly, are 
two very distinct sides, or ' poles/ of character ; but, save 
in their union, how could we have had the Life which now 
stands out at once so noble and massive, and yet so win- 
ning and beautiful, — so masculiDe, and yet so feminine, in 
our Lord ? 

And blending thus so marvellously the man and the wo- 
man in his human completeness, Christ suggests the natural 
relations of the two sexes as the complements of each 
other, and especially illustrates how they are intended to 
mingle and supplement each other in life, and what is the 
law of all right character andr all best work. 

As to Character, we all know what occurs when men are 
long separated from the tempering and refining influence of 
cultivated and virtuous women. They grow rough, coarse, 
boorish, barbarized. In like manner, consequences differ- 
ent, but analogous, show themselves in women when long 
separated from high-toned and intelligent masculine society. 
Hence the grave mistake of those who would divide the 
sexes in schools, colleges, or anywhere — except in prisons. 
Such results show that God has made them to dwell to- 
gether, to act and re-act on each other, and that the condi- 
tions of best culture are violated when some other arrange- 
ment is substituted for His.* And exemplifying the recip- 
rocal influence of the sexes, and the necessity for it, these 
results as distinctly intimate how the qualities of the two 
need to be interchanged. As our Lord could not have 

* Talking, a little while since, with a student, home on his vacation, 
about college life, and how ' the boys ' deport themselves at table and 
elsewhere, I could not but think how much would be gained to save 
them from the coarseness and boorishness thus described, were the 
refining presence of intelligent young ladies introduced among them. 



270 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

been the Christ he is except as the union of the two, so 
always. No man is most perfectly a man save as he has, 
also, something of the woman in him ; and no woman is most 
perfectly a woman save as she includes, also, something of 
the man. Anything but a perfect character follows in 
either case, indeed, if the man is so much of a woman as 
to lose his masculine distinctiveness, becoming only a fem- 
inine man, or if the woman, in a like predominance of the 
man, becomes a masculine woman. Such a product is -not 
simply an anomaly ; it is a violation of all the fitness and 
harmonies of nature, and cannot fail somehow to prove un- 
fortunate, or mischievous, as well as unnatural. What is 
required is that the exclusively masculine qualities in the 
man shall be flavored and chastened by those that are wo- 
manly, and that the purely feminine in the woman shall be 
re-enforced and strengthened by those that are manly. 

It is at this, as one form of his work, that Christ is constantly 
aiming in respect to us all ; and in no terms, perhaps, can 
the change which Christianity has wrought, in tempering, 
refining and ennobling life and law, be better described than 
by saying that it has thus transfused each of the sexes with 
something of the qualities of the other, — teaching woman 
the lesson of self-respect, giving new vigor to her will, new 
earnestness to her aspirations, a new sense of obligation to 
her conscience, a larger culture to her understanding, and an 
increased consciousness of individuality, independence, and 
distinct accountability to her life, — and infusing a gentle- 
ness, tenderness, and purity into the life of man never known 
before. The same work must still more widely and posi- 
tively go on, if the regeneration of the world is to go on ; 
and only as it does go on, and men are mellowed and softened 
with womanly graces, and women catch a masculine self- 
reliance, individuality and force, can either attain the style 
of character that fulfils the purpose of their being, or best 
approach their common model, Christ. 

And what is thus true as to Character, is no less true as to 
Work. In union there is strength ; and the greatest strength 
can be given to any good cause, important ends of any sort 
can be most quickly or certainly reached, only as man and 



MAN AND WOMAN. 271 

woman mingle and co-operate in the effort. Of what avail 
would have been all that men could do for the salvation of 
our republic, had the women of the North been disloyal in our 
late contest with treason, or had they withheld their sympa- 
thy and moral encouragement and support from the loyal 
side ? At the South, it was woman — mistaken, but sin- 
cere, impassioned, ready for any sacrifice, that fed the fires 
of rebellion and gave inspiration and strength to the traitor- 
ous struggle ; and at the North, it was only because the 
women were no less true than the men — ready to work, 
— ready to pray, — ready to say to husbands, sons and 
brothers, Stay not for us ; go, and do your duty for your 
country's sake, — ready to go themselves to watch and 
serve in the hospital, to minister in the camp, and to be like 
angels of mercy even amidst the carnage of the battle-field, 
that liberty triumphed, and that the Union stands. And 
this but indicates the universal rule. I remember that, some 
years ago, the men of New England undertook to build a 
monument on Bunker Hill. They began with much enthu- 
siasm. Then the money gave out, and they were com- 
pelled to stop. Again, after a while, they rallied, and, 
gathering more means, carried the work a little farther. 
But soon they had to halt again ; and there, above the 
sacred old battle-ground, the half-finished structure stood 
for years the shame of our American patriotism, and the es- 
pecial mortification of all New England. At length, the 
women took hold, and ere long, men and women working 
together, the money was raised, and the monument was done. 
So always — as the societies and philanthropies, of va- 
rious names, that are most a success to-day, all over the 
civilized world, effectually tell. Tract societies, Missionary 
societies, Bible societies, asylums and charities — who needs 
to be told how much less all these would be as compared with 
what they are, if either men or women had undertaken alone 
to found and to further them ? The masculine and feminine 
forces are co-ordinate. In concurrence they are the powers 
God has appointed for moving and recreating the world ; 
and only as, concurring, they put themselves as one to it, is 
any of life's best work most efficiently accomplished. Is it 
not a fact of suggestive import, that even in the great work 



272 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

of the world's redemption God invoked the instrumentality 
of woman, because man alone could not inaugurate or com- 
plete it, and that, " born of a woman/ ' he who was to be 
the image of God, drawing all men unto him, was her con- 
tribution to the sublime enterprise ? 

Nor, important as both are, is there any ground for legit- 
imate dispute as to which takes precedence in importance. 
He would be not only a presumptuous, but a foolish -man, 
who, analyzing the character of Christ, should venture to 
have any opinion, or even to raise the question, as to which 
of the two sides so manifest in it is the more important. 
Both are important, equally so — since without either, there 
could be no Christ. And not less is the presumption, or the 
folly, of those who, considering the offices to which man and 
woman have been respectively appointed, dare to debate as 
if one or the other could have precedence. The distinction 
of sex runs through all creation, and without either, all 
would perish. In many particulars, — in all, so far as hu- 
manity, and not sex, asserts itself, the uses, needs, and em- 
ployments of man and woman are either identical, or inter- 
changeable ; but that, as man and woman, there are different 
spheres for which they are fitted, — different duties for 
which they are designed, — different avocations which they 
can most appropriately pursue, is evident. This, however, 
argues no inequality, nor does it intimate that either is more 
necessary or important than the other. The mother and 
the father, — the brother and the sister, — the husband and 
the wife, — he who builds ships, or sweats at the forge, 
and she who plies the needle, — the toiler in the counting- 
room, at the bench, or on the farm, and the mistress of the 
home — who will undertake to draw a line between these, 
and to say which occupies the prouder or the humbler po- 
sition, or which acts the part most requisite in the grand 
economy of life ? As well might the sunlight and the air 
get up a quarrel as to their relative importance 1 For my- 
self, I confess that I have no words duly to express my dis- 
gust at all such discussions, or my sense of their baselessness 
and impropriety ; and especially does it awaken my wonder 
and disgust, when I hear women so lost to self-respect and a 



MAN AND WOMAN. 273 

just appreciation of the dignity and glory of a true woman- 
hood, as to talk as if what have hitherto been regarded as 
man's peculiar pursuits and avocations were in any respect 
more noble or dignified, or more worthy the honorable am- 
bition of an aspiring woman, than those to which, as a 
woman, she has been appointed. Shame on the man, who, 
forgetting his wife or his mother, for a moment indulges the 
thought that woman is not, in every attribute and office, at 
least fully his peer ; and shame even more on the woman, 
who, in a discontented itching to be something other than 
she is, dishonors her sex by disparaging its fitting employ- 
ments, and, croaking as to the ignobleness of her limitations, 
vainly apes the life of a man, in open or secret rebellion 
against God for making her a woman. 

Denials, it is true, there are of woman's individuality, 
and discriminations against her rights — though among 
these, in my judgment, the right to vote is not included — 
of which, the relics of that condition of bondage and inferi- 
ority out of which Christianity has lifted her, woman has 
just reason to complain, and for the correction of which 
woman and all fair-minded men should strenuously insist 
and persistently agitate. 

Traditional notions, too, there are, as to what employments 
woman may fittingly adopt, against which all women, and 
men in their behalf, have no less reason to remonstrate 
and rebel. In former years, the lines thus drawn were so 
restricted that women were not unfrequently compelled to 
repress themselves in the non-use of special gifts in the ex- 
ercise of which they might have attained eminence, or to 
confine themselves to avocations already so crowded as to 
leave no room for large numbers except to starve, or beg, 
or sell themselves to sin. Latterly, these lines have been 
somewhat extended, and women have been overstepping 
the old boundaries and getting into pursuits and industries 
that would once have been thought quite improper for them. 
But there is still too much of the old traditional estimate 
surviving. The whole world is open for woman just as 
much as for man, and there is no arbitrary or conventional 
rule to be set up as to what she may or may not do. Any 
gift is a Divine call to its use ; and to be in the world is to 
18 



274 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

have the right to choose how, honestly, to earn our bread. 
Whatever she can do, therefore, woman may properly feel 
herself at liberty to do, due regard being had to natural pro- 
prieties and constitutional limitations. A man who should 
strangely get the idea that it is his office to bear children, 
or to do ' dress-making ? or ' plain sewing/ or to keep house 
instead of his wife, or to do any one of a thousand similar 
things, we should say, had somehow become morbid or 
twisted in his estimate of his fitting employment ; and what- 
ever fondness or ability he might urge, we should tell him, 
could better find exercise in something more appropriately 
masculine. And so, equally, a woman, who should as 
strangely think herself called to build or to sail ships as her 
life-calling, or to make roads, to erect houses, to quarry 
rocks, to run locomotives, to sit in the senate, to plead at 
the bar, or to do anything else so evidently outside the 
feminine province, however she might aver a native taste 
or ability for it, would invite a similar judgment, and could 
as properly receive like advice. Evidently, as just now 
said, there is a mascidine and there is a feminine sphere. 
But with only this qualification, founded in nature itself, it 
is for woman no less than for man to enter the field of all 
possible employment, and to walk where she will, following 
the bent of her genius, or electing as she prefers, whether 
it be to paint pictures or to chisel statues, to compose songs 
or to sing them, to write or to ' keep 7 books, to deliver lec- 
tures, to set types, to sell merchandise, to count money, to 
ply the needle, or to do whatever else she will. So that 
the employment be but honest and useful, it will be its own 
vindication as becoming and womanly, and will thus suffi- 
ciently vindicate her for pursuing it. 

But these unjust discriminations and false ideas being 
corrected, it is for both men and women, sitting at the feet 
of nature, to see that their respective offices and lines of 
service have been as wisely appointed as they are distinctly 
marked ; that, as just now remarked, they are co-ordinate, 
neither having the pre-eminence as assigned to offices more 
dignified or more important than the other, since both are 
equally indispensable ; and that they are alike most worthy 
and honorable when, in no spirit of jealousy, and no sour or 



MAN AND WOMAN. 275 

flippant aping of each other, but in a spirit of mutual self- 
respect and co-operation, — man as man, woman as woman, 
— they stand each, reverently and helpfully, in the lot God 
has prescribed, and seek to glorify it by a faithful discharge 
of the duties it imposes. 

Whatever is to be done can best be done as man and 
woman thus work together. But in nothing are the con- 
junction and co-operation to which they are so called more 
needful than in labors for church-interests ; and in the New 
Departure to which we are summoned, if we are to be most 
efficient as a Christian Church, more account will have to 
be made of this fact, and more thorough and systematic 
means will have to be employed to provide for and secure 
this co-operation. Not that I mean to intimate any inten- 
tional neglect of woman hitherto as an element of power in 
our Church, nor that we have been particularly behind other 
churches in recognizing the importance of her influence, or 
seeking to enlist it. I mean only that, with us as with 
most other churches, there has been no systematic effort in 
this direction. Like others; indeed, we have had our sew- 
ing societies, and fairs, and festivals, — in all of which, of 
course, woman has been a party. She has had her place, 
moreover, — in many instances, a most important place, — 
in the Sunday-school. But, aside from these, she has been 
left without any special sense of responsibility, because she 
has been left to feel that there was nothing else for her to 
do. It is for us, in the time to come, if we would be most 
and do most as a Church, to amend our methods in this par- 
ticular ; to assign woman equally with man something to do ; 
and to have it understood that, in all things, she is to be 
systematically an active participant in our Church work. 

But how shall this be done ? A quite vigorous demon- 
stration has of late been made among us in the direction of 
a woman ministry ; and no small press of influence has 
been used by some of those favorable to it to induce all 
women who could be so persuaded to go into the pulpit. 
Is this to be a part of woman's new work hereafter for our 
Church ? My own very decided conviction is, No. I have 
great faith in woman, but no faith in a woman ministry. 



_ 



276 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

Not that I have no faith in woman's right to speak, if she 
has anything to say, and is moved to say it in public, either 
in the pulpit or anywhere else. I know not why she may 
not speak or pray, as well as sing, in public, if she can do 
it to edification ; know not why it is not her province and 
her right — nay, if she feels so impressed, her duty — to do 
these things, or either of them, as much as it is, or can be, 
man's. The power to instruct or to move, either by written 
or spoken language, is not of sex, but of soul ; and the pos- 
session of the power is God's warranty for its use. Some 
of the prayers that have taken me nearest heaven have been 
\he outpouring of woman's devotion ; and some of the 
most eloquent and impressive utterances it has been my 
good fortune to hear have come burning from woman's 
heart and brain, in liquid fire from woman's lips. Who 
shall forbid such women — or any woman who can do it — 
either the privilege or the right to carry souls to the Father's 
throne on the wings of their prayers, or to kindle and in- 
spire us with their messages of instruction, or their plead- 
ings for truth and the right, whatever the theme on which 
they may choose to speak, or the place in which they may 
prefer to stand ? Not I, surely, ' lest haply ' I * be found to 
fight against God.' 

But to speak or to pray in public as convenience suits, 
or as occasion demands, is one thing ; to make the ministry 
a profession, and to be formally set apart to the pastoral 
office, is quite another : and, with all deference to my 
preaching sisters, many of whom it is my privilege to 
know, and most of whom I hold in high esteem, I am 
compelled to confess that the propriety of the latter does 
not by any means seem to me to follow from the right- 
fulness of the former. To do the former is to follow 
God's intimations, in a legitimate use of gifts He has be- 
stowed ; to do the latter, I cannot but think, is to overlook 
evident hinderances and disqualifications in woman's very 
constitution, physical if not moral, and is thus totally to 
disregard the fitness of things. Every woman choosing the 
ministry as her life-work deliberately renounces offices for 
which she was intended, or proposes to accept these offices 
only to make incidental and secondary the paramount and 



MAN AND WOMAN. 277 

sacred duties which they involve. A woman ministry, 
therefore, in the sense of adopting the ministry as a profes- 
sion, is out of the order of nature. It is forbidden by in- 
trinsic impediments and constitutional restraints and limita- 
tions. It is, and in the nature of the case always must be, 
an anomaly. For this reason, it is winning us no respect. 
It is helping us to no hold on the best and most thoughtful 
minds — only serving to confirm the false impression that 
we are an unbalanced and visionary people, given to crotch- 
ets, and ready to adopt every vagary that may assert itself, 
or seem to promise us help to get up a sensation. Despite 
immediate appearances anywhere, it is doing us no good, 
having regard to the interests of our cause ' in the long 
run ; ' and, whatever special efforts, or spasmodic tenden- 
cies, may temporarily do to push recruits into it, or what- 
ever popularity, or supposed legitimacy, ingenious special 
pleadings and inconsequent reasonings may avail for a while 
to give it, it can never be otherwise than exceptional, or 
command the cordial sympathy and support of any consid- 
erable number of intelligent people. 

These being my convictions, I scarcely need further ex- 
plain why it is not in the ministry that, looking to our New 
Departure, I see woman's work for our Church. Neither 
judgment nor conscience would permit me to encourage a 
woman to prepare for the ministry ; and should one come 
to me, claiming to be prepared, and asking license, ordina- 
tion, or installation, neither personally nor officially could I 
vote, or in any way assist, to give it. At the same time, it 
seems to me unwise to have any controversy upon the sub- 
ject. The idea of a woman ministry is one of the numerous 
extravagances incident to all periods of agitation in respect 
to important principles, when, in the reaction from old mis- 
takes or abuses, extreme, irrelevant, and therefore false, 
conclusions are jumped at from premises more or less sound. 
It belongs to the category of things against which it avails 
nothing to reason, because they are not matters of argu- 
ment or reasoning, only of impulse or sentiment, — often 
of obstinate self-will. It will have its run, as many a simi- 
lar idea has had, and then pass away. It is self-limited, 
and therefore self-doomed. Nature is not to be successfully 



278 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

defied, whatever transient seemings may be ; and, being 
against it, nature may be trusted, without much ado on our 
part, in time, to dispose of it. 

And, having no faith in the pulpit as a fitting profession 
for woman, or in its work as her future work for the church, 
I have no more faith in the policy of her separate action 
which many of all churches are so ready to invoke, and 
which, notably, came in among us with our Centenary and 
has since been organized for permanence. The principle of 
separation is in effect — though, commonly, not so intended 

— that of disintegration. As such, it is not a good 
principle anywhere, if results which unity and consolidation 
can best produce are desired ; and least of all is it a good 
principle for man and woman in work for the church. Let 
it be granted that some desirable ends may be gained 
through woman's separate action which could not be so 
fully realized without it. So some desirable ends might be 
accomplished if we should stir our rich men to have their 
separate action, — and our poor men to have theirs, — 
and our young people to have theirs, — and our children to 
have theirs, — and our people of brown hair to have theirs, 

— and those of light hair to have theirs — and so on, 
dividing and subdividing through all possible distinctions. 
No doubt there are those who could be reached and induced 
to contribute time and money on such a plan of procedure, 
who could not otherwise be interested. But how it would 
dishevel and segregate us ! What a bundle of fragments it 
would make us ! How it would impair and to a large extent 
destroy not only our sense of unity, but our spirit of co- 
operation ! And what rivalries and jealousies and cross- 
purposes it would beget ! It may be doubted whether any 
wise and practical friend of our Church, or of any church, 
would favor a proposition to organize on any such plan, 
whatever the immediate products it might promise. But if 
the principle of separate action for our women be sound 
and expedient, why not as sound and expedient for all 
the separate action that can be devised ? 

It is not separation, but aggregation that we want. The 
more thoroughly unified and compact we are, — the more 



MAN, AND WOMAN. 279 

perfectly and systematically we can be brought to work 
together, not as many, but as one, the stronger we shall be, 
and the more we shall be able to accomplish. And true of 
all others, this is no less true of men and women. It is in 
the concurrence of the masculine and feminine forces, as was 
just now said, that God has provided for the power which 
most moves the world. The more these two forces are 
conjoined, making common cause, not merely with reference 
to the general ends to be furthered, but with reference to 
ways and means, the mightier they become. Any two 
persons, disposed to work, working together, will accom- 
plish more than they can, working apart ; and men and 
women — if the figure may be pardoned — hitched together, 
and pulling the same load in the same harness, will do vastly 
more than if each party insists on having its special load 
and its special harness. They will pull different sides, in 
different ' traces ' ; but it will be the same load, pulled to 
unspeakably greater effect. What do God's arrangements 
say to us ? He does not set men in one company, and 
women in another. He puts them together — in families, 
in churches, in communities, everywhere : assigning them, 
it is true, to dissimilar duties, with ' diversities of gifts ' and 
'diversities of operations/ but with one common interest, 
and with their dissimilar duties only parts of one common 
work. Who doubts that all the interests involved are thus 
better served than though they had been organized apart ? 
So we shall be strong in proportion as we can enlist their 
activity and co-operation on the same principle. 

Let me not be misunderstood. I have been heartily glad 
to see our women alive to the necessity of somehow making 
themselves actively felt in our Church affairs, and for this 
reason have counted it a privilege to contribute as I could to 
the success of what they have undertaken. I do not wonder 
that they have tired — the earnest, devoted souls among 
them, of the policy — or rather, of the no-policy — which 
has prevailed among us, in common with other churches, 
with regard to them, and that they have been moved, alike 
by self-respect and by their love for the dear cause which is 
as much theirs as ours, to their separate organization, since, 
they had reason to suppose, this was the only way in which 



280 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

they could really become participants in our general work. 
Better, far better such action than none ; and if the ques- 
tion to-day were, Shall the women do nothing, or shall they 
work by themselves as they are trying to do ? I would say, 
By all means, though the principle of separation be not 
sound, and at the risk of all consequences, let them organ- 
ize and do what they can. Life is better than lethargy, 
even though hazards must attend it. But while ready with 
all my heart to say this, and to thank God and them for 
whatever good work they have done, I am none the less 
satisfied that the principle on which they are now proceed- 
ing is a false one, certain to divide our sympathies, and 
likely to fritter our energies and to give rise to emulations, 
jealousies and misunderstandings not at all favorable to the 
union in which lies our strength. The question, happily, is 
not, Shall our women do nothing, or work by themselves ? 
but, How shall we combine our resources, so as to make 
ourselves most effective ? And, convinced that one of the 
answers to this question is to be found in the wise and 
thorough consolidation of our masculine and feminine forces, 
and not in their segregation, I make these suggestions, with- 
out any attempt thoroughly to discuss the subject, trusting 
that attention may be so called to the erroneous principle and 
what is likely to result from it, as to insure better action. 

It seems to me a sad — and in some respects, a most 
unpromising — thing, that our women should be talking 
as if they were a distinct element in our Church, and as 
if it were desirable that they should, as women, show them- 
selves "a power " in it. Is it forgotten that in Christ 
" there is neither male nor female " ? As Universalists, the 
inquiry of chief interest concerning us is not whether we 
are men or women, but whether we are lovers of the truth, 
ready to work for it ; and as lovers of the truth, ready to 
work for it, whether men or women, we should clasp hands, 
and give ourselves to our Church-work as one work. So 
far as our women have any definite aims, they are identical 
with those of our Convention. Why, then, split our work, 
needlessly multiplying calls for f contributions/ dividing 
sympathy, and keeping two sets of machinery in motion ? 
In union lies our greatest strength. Can we not have this 



MAN AND WOMAN. 281 

understood, and cease to parcel off our work as man's and 
woman's, and be done with these special "woman's" 
associations, appeals and contributions ? Can we not organ- 
ize and conduct all our enterprises, of whatever sort, as parts 
of one great whole, equally the concern of all, and showing 
that not men, and not women, as such, but souls consecrated 
to Christ, men and women, are the ' power ' — and the only- 
recognized power — in our Church? If we cannot, alas! 
for us. If we can, not only shall we escape most undesira- 
ble liabilities to which this separate system exposes us, but 
we shall secure a sense of unity and a practical co-operation 
and a harvest of results otherwise impossible. 

And seeing nothing for our Church in a woman ministry, 
and more than doubting the wisdom or permanent useful- 
ness of woman's separate action, I must further add that I 
have as little faith in any good as likely to come to our 
cause from the present tendency to constitute our Conven- 
tions of woman-delegates. Put into plain terms, this ten- 
dency amounts simply to this — a disposition, because men 
cannot be found willing to leave their business for such 
duties, to fill up our delegations with young girls and women, 
who, earnest and excellent in many respects, have little or 
no interest in the details of our Church-affairs, — have no 
acquaintance with business and no resources of practical 
judgment, and are thus destitute of the qualities without 
which neither dignity nor weight can be given to our repre- 
sentative bodies. It seems plain to me that only evil can 
come from such a state of things. What we need in this 
particular is to attract increased attention to these represent- 
ative bodies, and to give them increased dignity and im- 
portance because of the intelligence, position, ripeness of 
judgment and elevated character of those who compose 
them. We have committed serious mistakes, and been 
much at fault, hitherto, in this department of our concerns. 
The rule, too frequently, has been that any reputable man, 
1 willing to go/ has been thought to be material suitable 
enough for a delegate. Our best men we have sometimes 
had, but not often. It is not so with other churches. As 
the rule, they send only their best men, and it is a sight well 



282 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

worth beholding, to go into some of these bodies in session 
and see of what material they are constituted. Why should 
not our bodies be constituted with equal care to bring our 
wisest and weightiest representatives into them ? Our best, 
our most thoughtful and cultivated, our most practically 
sagacious and eminent minds are the delegates we want, and 
that we should insist on having ; and if there are women 
in our churches — as there are — belonging to this class of 
minds, thoughtful, practical, with a taste for business and a 
familiarity with our methods and work, with definite opinions 
and a willingness to express them, and a disposition to attend, 
faithfully to the duties of delegates, by all means let us have 
them. They will add dignity, and character, and wisdom 
to our councils. But it can only issue every way in harm 
to us if women of a different type are sent ; and so far as 
they are sent, and the immature, the flippant, the non-prac- 
tical, those unwilling or unable to give serious attention to 
business as business, or incompetent to have or to express 
intelligent opinions touching the great interests that are, 
every year, more and more to demand the action of our 
delegated bodies, the men who ought to be in them will be 
disinclined to have part in our legislation, and these bodies 
will degenerate into mere gatherings for talk, worthy of lit- 
tle respect and commanding none. 

What, then, is there for woman to do ? and how is she, 
in our New Departure, more generally and more effectively 
to concur in labors for our Church ? These are questions 
more easily asked, perhaps, than answered in set detail. 
But even if they were questions of the easiest answer, it 
would not fall within the province of these pages to answer 
at length, since the purpose here is to suggest needs, and, 
if possible, to awaken thought towards their supply, rather 
than to recommend particular methods in form. It will be 
enough if any word thus said shall stimulate to reflection 
upon this subject. Once induce this among our people, and 
plans and methods will soon follow. 

Let it suffice now to remark, by way only of outline and 
suggestion, that every parish and every church should be or- 
ganized on the principle of giving every member something 



MAN AND WOMAN. 283 

to do, and in the assignments of labor thus made, women 
equally with men should be appointed to duty. This will 
give in every congregation women as well as men for pas- 
toral visitation and counsel, — for looking after the sick and 
the poor, —for waiting on outsiders whom it is desirable to 
bring in, and on new comers whom it is desirable to help feel 
at home, and on the lukewarm and absentees whom it is de- 
sirable to stir to better attendance and a new interest ; — 
for soliciting money ; — for talking up new and forward 
■movements of whatever sort, and for furthering the common 
welfare in any way. Women, moreover, as well as men, 
should be looked to for their help in the Conference Meet- 
ing, and the meeting for prayer, and in whatever other 
work may be attempted to promote and deepen religious 
life. 

Then our State Conventions and our General Convention 
should recognize women, just as much as men, as among 
their constituents, in appointing committees, in inviting sug- 
gestions, in the distribution of responsible duties for the 
furtherance of our cause. As an example of what might in 
this way be done, take the action of our General Convention, 
at its last session, in respect to the Missionary Box — a 
source of revenue which others, copying it from us, have 
made so productive, and which might be made equally pro- 
ductive for us, but concerning the best management of which 
there has been so much debate. After much discussion, the 
Convention, whose it is, and whose it should sacredly re- 
main, wisely determined to put it — not into the hands of a 
separate Woman's Association as had been proposed, as if 
women were not an integral part of our Church, but into 
the hands of a committee, a majority of them women, who, 
in the name of the Convention, are to administer the Boxes 
in its behalf, and to cause them, through such agencies as 
may thus be appointed, to pour full streams, twice a year, 
into its treasury. Who doubts the result, should the 
women of the committee take vigorous hold of the business ? 
Or, how better could our women be brought into direct 
and practical co-operation with the Convention, as part 
and parcel of it ? This is mentioned only as one example 
of what might be done ; but the example suggestively covers 



284 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

the whole field, and indicates how, be it what it may that 
our Church proposes-, whether educational-work, missionary- 
work, publication-work, or whatever else, our women may 
be enlisted, and be made as actually as men, and directly 
with them, participants in it. 

Who can anticipate all that would follow from such a 
systematic enlistment of our women in all the activities of 
our Church, from our primary to our superior bodies, and 
in all the plans that may be proposed — never as an out- 
sider, or as an auxiliary, but in organic identification with 
them ? Imagine a congregation composed altogether of 
men, or altogether of women, or for the upbuilding of which 
there was no conjunction of the two in effort ! What a dif- 
ferent thing it would be from a congregation in which both 
were working earnestly and sympathetically together ! And 
what is thus true as to the life and strength and prosperity 
insured to a single congregation or parish, by heartily enlist- 
ing women — not to get up side-operations, but to make 
common cause with their husbands, sons, and brothers for 
the furtherance of the common welfare, is equally true of a 
whole denomination. There are some things that men can 
do best ; there are other things that women can do best ; 
unite them, and in proportion as they have the real spirit of 
work, there is no such thing as failure in any labor to which 
they put their hands. 

Be it ours wisely to heed this lesson, and thus, in this re- 
spect, to make the New Departure on which, as to our 
future, so much depends. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

UNITY. 

In organization, the TTniversalist Church is happily one 
as never before — and as those of little faith, amidst our 
numerous and seemingly fruitless experiments, were accus- 
tomed to insist that we never could be.* We are at length 
unified in our General Convention, in a sense of common 
interests, in devotion to a common cause. Perhaps in noth- 
ing was our Centenary Year of greater advantage to us than 

* I cannot forbear here to express regret, which must be shared by all 
who have most carefully studied the subject, at the disposition which has 
already showed itself in several localities to ' tinker ' and modify the 
Plan of Organization adopted at Gloucester, before it has had an oppor- 
tunity to prove itself. A ' uniform organization ' was for years the de- 
sideratum demanded from all parts of our Zion, and by common con- 
sent it was agreed that the Gloucester Plan, the fruit of so much thought 
and labor, and adopted with such gratifying unanimity, had been fortu- 
nate in meeting this demand. It did not, perhaps, please any one in 
every minute particular. Certainly, nobody anticipated that it was per- 
fect in all its details. But it was felt that its general principles were 
sound, and that, framed in the sincere effort, as far as possible, to meet 
and harmonize conflicting opinions, it was deserving a fair and thorough 
trial. It is to be lamented that this view seems not to ha^e found uni- 
versal acceptance.' Some of the attempts to change the Plan, it is grati- 
fying to know, have signally failed. But in other instances, local no- 
tions and individual theories have been permitted to mar the harmony 
of the system — fortunately, as yet, only in minor points, but enough to 
destroy the ' uniformity ' so much desired, as soon as it seemed to 
be attained. It is safe to say that yet other uneasy theorists will pro- 
pose their changes, anxious to mend what they would only help to spoil. 
Is it too much to suggest that all such further attempts for the present 
be quashed? Give the Plan time. Let experience demonstrate its im- 
perfections. Then remedy them. Cannot the lesson be learned among 
us, that long-considered and laboriously-adjusted methods are not like- 
ly to be much improved by the hasty suggestions of a moment, or an 
hour, of debate ; that no human instrument can be framed, in all points, 
to please every local preference, or individual fancy; and, above all, 
that, if we are to be a homogeneous Church, the wise way is for us to 
be content to accept what the general voice of our body approves ? We 
can never be anything but a clumsy piece of patch-work, if we cannot 
learn this lesson. 

285 



286 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

in helping to nurture and consummate this feeling of Unity, 
and in thus consolidating us into One National Church. It 
did this in various ways, and in none, probably, more effect- 
ually than through the effort it incited to create the Murray 
Fund. We needed the money thus realized, and it will 
prove of immense use to us ; but far beyond its value as 
so many thousand dollars, was the gain it brought us as, 
East, Midst, West, we together put ourselves to the task of 
building this Central Memorial Fund. It mattered little in 
this particular that some of the States did not come up to 
their quotas, and that, for this reason, the sum proposed 
was not fully realized. The moral effect was realized hardly 
less ; and the talk about the Fund, the effort to raise it, and 
the fact that so much was done towards raising it, did more 
to pervade us with the sense of oneness we so much needed, 
and to knit us into a practical and heartily co-operative unity, 
than folios of resolutions, or months of mere preaching or 
argument, could have done : and as the Convention, to the 
full extent of its ability, has set itself to work in the employ- 
ment of the means thus furnished — thinking nothing of 
locality, thinking only how best to serve our one cause, 
this sense of unity has been still further promoted, as it will 
be yet more and more as the work goes on. In this respect, 
though doubtless there will be those, constitutionally sour, or 
crooked, or impracticable, who will snarlingly or factiously 
talk about ' ambition/ and ' centralization, 7 and ' the methods 
of the fathers/ the unity of our Church, extraordinaries ex- 
cepted, will henceforth take care of itself. There is no oc- 
casion to speak here of its advantages, or to dwell on the 
importance of doing all we rightly can to foster and pre- 
serve it. 

In another sense, however, this subject of Unity is one 
that is demanding our special attention, and concerning 
which we should at once resolve on a New Departure. As 
a people, we are in most respects pervaded by a kind and 
fraternal spirit — no people more; but in some other re- 
spects, this spirit is seriously lacking. We have too much 
clannishness, too much suspicion and jealousy, at our sec- 
tional centres ; too much sensitiveness and covetous anx- 
iety touching purely personal and local influence and ends. 



UNITY. 287 

Boston looks askance at New York, and Augusta nervously 
watches Boston, and Cincinnati is ready to take up any 
adverse criticism against ' Cornhill ' or ' the Leader office/ 
and Chicago and ' the West ' do not feel altogether right 
towards 'the East/ and 'the East' is not wholly without 
corresponding feelings towards ' the West/ Supposed 
business interests are mainly at the bottom of this state of 
things, though to these is added a half-unconscious local or 
sectional bias, that would be ashamed openly to confess 
itself, even to itself, but that nevertheless exists, and prac- 
tically asserts itself as an undesirable element in our affairs. 
What is the consequence ? The rivalries and competitions 
thus engendered come to a head in feuds and bickerings 
and mutual fault-findings and accusations, that are not at 
all creditable to us, and that are productive of anything 
rather than the unity, and cordial good understanding, and 
hearty co-operation, which alike the dignity and the welfare 
of our Church require. This was illustrated, not long ago, 
by the remark at one of our centres, " As for me, my inter- 
ests are all here, at : " a remark happily rebuked in 

the reply, " I am glad to say I do not limit the work of the 

Lord in the earth to ." Other examples, some of them 

more mortifying, might be mentioned. But I forbear. 

Must this state of things continue ? No lover of our 
Church can consider it without pain. The following ex- 
tract from a letter, called forth by a specially mortifying 
illustration of this state of things, from a friend who has 
had long and favorable opportunity to become acquainted 
with and to study it in its various phases and operations, 
does but give voice to what is in many hearts concern- 
ing it : " This jealousy among brethren is the saddest thing 
I have €ver known in our Church. If it were only a per- 
sonal exhibition, it would deserve contempt ; but its harm- 
fulness to our cause fills me with sorrow. So out of sym- 
pathy am I with the entire spirit and tendency, that, if I 
were not sure that we stand for the eternal verities, and 
that, to make our Church worthy its high mission, we must 
stand inside and fight for it, I should be tempted to step 
quietly out from all this littleness that seems to have entered 
into us. Is it true that we who ought to be the noblest, 



288 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

most generous, most tolerant, large-hearted and Christ-like 
people in the world, are the most self-seeking and little- 
souled ? . . . Can we do nothing about it ? " 

This letter was for my private eye ; but I have felt justi- 
fied in using this portion of it, because it means so much 
touching the matter under treatment, and because it indi- 
cates why I have deemed the subject important enough to 
call for a separate chapter. The letter, as I have since per- 
sonally said to the writer, was somewhat too much an over- 
flow of feeling, unduly disheartened by the mortifying exhi- 
bition which suggested it. The idea of ' stepping out ' of 
our Church, quietly or otherwise, because anything in it 
fails to go just as we would have it, is one not to be for a 
moment entertained by any brave or loyal soul. It is a 
Providential Church, not only ' standing for the eternal veri- 
ties/ but called of God to a great work ; and, except upon 
contingencies altogether improbable, it is the duty of every 
Universalist to stand by it, seeking to correct whatever in 
it may need correction, and giving every possible contribu- 
tion of brain and heart to make it the efficient instrument 
in the world's redemption God would have it. And as to 
our being more ' self-seeking ? or ' little-souled ? than our 
neighbors of other Churches, there is no reason for any such 
thought. Looking as sharply behind their scenes as we do 
behind our own, we should find that they — the best of them 
— have their jealousies, heart-burnings and bickerings quite 
as much as we, — some of them far more ; and one has only 
to read their papers to be furnished with evidence of bad 
temper as flagrant, and of narrowness and littleness as 
marked, as any that ours have ever shown. This is noth- 
ing to our credit, it is true, and in no way lessens our fault, 
or our danger, on account of these things so far as they 
exist among us. But it admonishes us not to do ourselves 
injustice by thinking that we are worse than we are, and 
suggests that the wrong in question comes from what is 
common to all in the weakness of our human nature, and 
not from any littleness or perversity peculiar to us. 

But though the letter is open to criticism and deduction on 
these two points, its main burden is none the less weighty. 
The personal aims and feeling of which it speaks are not a 



UNITY. 289 

whit less serious or harmful than it avers. They are evil, 
and work only mischief, everywhere. Especially to our dis- 
credit, so far as they are suffered to have place among us, 
because so inconsistent with the spirit of our faith, they are 
inimical to eve^ interest of our Church, as well as utterly 
at war with those relations which should be cultivated 
among" brethren professing to love the same Lord, and to be 
devoted to the same great ends. 

Jealousy and clannish feuds and selfish competitions, open 
or secret, are — does it need to be said ? — necessarily ele- 
ments of weakness always, as they are always signs of per- 
sonal narrowness and littleness ; and till they cease among 
us, and we come practically to that Unity which the cardi- 
nal principles of our faith demand, whatever else may be in 
our favor, we can never be the Church we should be ambi- 
tious to become, breathing all of us the inspiration of a 
common life, and marching to the music of one grand com- 
mon purpose. A great common aim lifts all who really 
share it out of themselves and above any mercenariness of 
spirit, rendering them, in the enthusiasm that possesses 
them, incapable of feuds, or jealousies, or a mean regard to 
self, because blending them in the rhythm that makes all 
movement and feeling one. This is what we need, and is 
what we shall surely have, so far as the spirit of Christ as 
we interpret him takes possession of our hearts. And hav- 
ing it, how small and paltry will seem any thought of pri- 
vate, or personal, or local interests, such as now too much 
asserts itself, compared with the one great interest that 
rightfully claims to be supreme in our regards ! ^ 

I deal with this subject in no fanciful or sentimental view 
of it. I overlook nothing that legitimately belongs to what 
is called the practical and business side of it. Some 
thoughtfulness of self, duly subordinated to what is para- 
mount, we shall all agree, is not only allowable, but is a 
part of our duty ; and Boston and Chicago and Augusta 
and Cincinnati and New York do well thus to think of 
themselves, and how they may each build up a business 
that shall benefit our cause and at the same time yield a 
fair return to their own pockets. But nobody has a patent 
on Universalism ; nor is the Universalist Church, or any 
19 



290 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

portion of it, a field to be reaped, or a flock of sheep to 
be sheared, for anybody's particular benefit. A great deal 
would be gained if this could be understood. The assump- 
tion of something quite different from this is the fallacy 
which underlies most of our feuds and bickerings, and so 
gives chief occasion for the lack of unity here under notice. 
It seems strangely to have been taken for granted that indi- 
viduals or establishments have a right virtually to divide 
our Church-field into farms, of which special ownership, and 
within which special ' rights ' to do business and to make 
money, may be claimed, and that, if the lines of one of 
these several farms or divisions are crossed, lo ! just reason 
is given to the special occupant for whining, remonstrance 
and jealous complaint. But on what basis of fact or com- 
mon sense does any such assumption rest? Or, who or 
what are Augusta and Boston and Cincinnati and Chicago 
and New York, or either of them, that they should thus 
claim ownership of me, or of the church of which I am 
pastor, or of any other minister, or believer, or church in 
our communion.? " The field is the world ; " and ' an open 
field and fair play 1 is the only motto for those who under- 
take to do business in the name of Universalism, as it is for 
those engaged in any other honorable calling. Obligations 
of courtesy and gentlemanly dealing, of course, there are ; 
but all good books, whatever their imprint, have an equal 
right to find buyers, and the best book is entitled to com- 
mand the market. For like reasons, all religious journals 
have an equal right to invite and win subscribers wherever 
they can^ and the best deserves to have the largest sub- 
scription nst, whatever the locality in which it is published. 
The thing to be served is not anybody's private interest, 
but Universalism, held by us as the truth of God ; and the 
chief ends to be accomplished are not the profits of any 
establishment, but the extension and upbuilding of the Uni- 
versalist Church. To these everything else is secondary ; 
and these have a right to insist on the unobstructed service 
of the best instruments in their behalf, come they whence, 
or be they in whose hands, they may. If anybody can 
serve these, and in so doing serve themselves, well ; but no 
person or establishment is warranted in setting up a special 



UNITY. 291 

claim to any particular portion of our field, demanding that 
others, whatever the merit of their wares, shall keep away 
from it, or in regarding anybody else as a trespasser, to be 
assailed with protests, or to be pelted with hard names, if, 
in an honorable way, he seeks to find patrons or customers 
in it. Could this but be once seen to be the true ground in 
respect to this subject, to be occupied in a common spirit 
of fraternal courtesy, the main cause of our jealousies and 
fretting discords would be gone. Everything for Universal- 
ism, and nothing for persons or places except as secondary to 
it, would be the cry of all our hearts ; and with free scope 
for brotherly competition in the effort to produce what is 
worthiest, all legitimate personal or local interests would 
find themselves harmonized and best promoted in the mutual 
regard for our truth and our Church which would make 
us one. 

It was the dream of Horace Greeley's life, to see all our 
papers and publishing interests consolidated into an estab- 
lishment that should unite our whole people in loyalty to it, 
issuing a journal worthy of our Church, and sending out 
books, tracts and periodicals broadcast over the land. He 
had his impracticable side ; but it is conceded that his judg- 
ment as to papers was worth something. Can we doubt, 
that could his dream be realized, it would do for us more 
than any other single agency could ? But the time is not 
ripe for this. Even if those now controlling our several 
publishing interests should be moved to come into the prop- 
osition, the personal, local, clannish element is yet so strong 
with some among us, that new proposals for papers would 
doubtless very soon be issued from these same sections, 
enforced by glowing appeals to local prejudice and local 
pride, and by frightful pictures of the dangers of ' cen- 
tralization/ and, probably, by eloquent pleas for 'individ- 
ual enterprise ' ; and there would unquestionably be enough 
to respond as subscribers to put ' other Richmonds ? into 
the field at once. So long as localism and a jealousy of 
* centralization ' at all survive among us, there will be those 
who will appeal to and seek to feed upon them. Such is 
human nature. And so long, it will be in vain — so far as any 
such result is immediately concerned — to set forth, no mat- 



292 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

ter how clearly, the advantages of the consolidation which 
Mr. Greeley proposed, or to show how much better it is that 
the profits of our various publications should go into the treas- 
ury of our Church, for Ghurch-extension and Church-work, 
than that they should go into the pockets of individuals, 
for their personal enrichment, whatever bonus they may be 
willing to pay for the sake of so enriching themselves. 
But truth and good sense will finally prevail. In this 'assur- 
ance, it is for those who believe in Mr. Greeley's general 
plan, to keep it in agitation, educating our people to see 
what would be gained by it, and so preparing for the time 
when our whole Church shall say, Enough of divided and 
personal publication interests. Let them coalesce, the pos- 
session of the Church, to help, by whatsoever they shall 
yield, to promote Church-ends. The amounts that some of 
our publishers are willing to pay for the sake of keeping the 
field only indicate the profits they make, and that might, on 
Mr. Greeley's, plan, be realized for our Church-work. 

In the mean time, let us resolve on the New Departure 
herein seen to be so demanded by every consideration touch- 
ing our Church's welfare. The remedy for the state of 
things of which this chapter treats is in our hands. What 
a shame it is to us, and what evil is likely to come of it, 
are apparent. Let ministers and people, with one consent, 
unite to say, We will have no more of it, enforcing their 
command by means readily at hand, and which those mainly 
at fault will be sure to feel. If the people should resolve, 
and every sin against their resolve should be followed by a 
deluge of protests, ending with, Cease, or stop my paper I 
we may be sure their will would be speedily heeded. The 
word not only of the Apostle, but of the Master to us is, 
'•' Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, 
with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbear- 
ing one another in love." Be it ours, all of us, to obey 
this word, laying aside these sins which so easily beset us, 
forgetting self in devotion to our cause, and rising above all 
personal and local aims in the one purpose to love and serve 
our Church " in the unity of the spirit, in the bond of 
peace." 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

GIVING. 

Our early training and traditions were all against religious 
Giving. Rebounding from the beliefs of the Onurch, as 
there has been occasion several times to repeat, we re- 
bounded from and antagonized its methods also ; and among 
these methods, none, perhaps, were more stiffly opposed 
than the system of Church Beneficence. It was denounced 
as priestcraft, and as part of a system designed to subject 
the country to sectarian domination, and to exercise a bale- 
ful influence on our civil and religious liberty. Patriotism 
as well as anti-orthodoxy was appealed to, to discourage 
and frown upon it. These appeals, unfortunately, were 
vigorously seconded by the natural selfishness of the human 
heart, and a cordial welcome was thus insured for the teach- 
ing which accompanied them. So we grew up, with our 
education and our selfishness alike concurring to render us 
averse to systematic contributions for religious ends. Oc- 
casional efforts in this direction appear to have been made, 
notwithstanding the general current of denominational sen- 
timent in this particular ; and there are even indications 
that there was a time in our early history when our parishes 
were expected to make annual contributions to our Con- 
vention — though precisely for what purpose is not clear. 
These attempts, however, were feeble and spasmodic, and 
seem not to have been of much avail. As the result, amidst 
the constant warfare against ' sectarian begging/ and anathe- 
mas as constant against all ' priestly devices ; for drawing 
money from the people's pockets, we naturally became a 
people bristling with hostile prejudices against any and all 
efforts to raise money for religious purposes, outside ordi- 
nary parish expenses, and a rare contribution in response 
to some special appeal. 

Under these circumstances, when the necessities of our 

293 



294 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

work and the demand for something like enterprise and edu- 
cational provisions on our part began to press, we had the 
whole previous education of years to unlearn, and the preju- 
dices so carefully fostered to conquer and outgrow. As 
might have been expected, our first schools begged and 
starved — as was painfully exemplified in the early history 
of Clinton, not to speak of others of the same class, and in 
the struggles by which our Theological School at Canton 
for a long time just kept its head above water ; and till very 
recently our Missionary efforts, after longer or shorter at- 
tempts to live, invariably came to an untimely end, with this 
verdict to be rendered above their remains : Died of the lack 
of money, because of the indisposition of the people to give. 
Whatever the call sent out for purposes of Church-extension, 
it was sure to be treated with neglect by most of our minis- 
ters and parishes, while it received but scant} 7 response 
from those who responded at all ; and when it was seriously 
proposed to go before the denomination for One Hundred 
Thousand Dollars, to establish Tufts College, who that was 
then in the field will ever forget how wild the project was 
thought by many to be, or how hands were lifted, and eye- 
brows raised, among our parishes all over the land, at the 
utter hardihood of such an undertaking ? 

We have been bravely learning since then, and an im- 
mense advance has been made in the generous disposition 
and habits of our people. Schools and colleges have been 
endowed ; the Murray Fund — so much of it as we have — 
has been raised ; the honorable record of our Centenary 
Year has been made ; church-debts have been paid, and 
splendid church-edifices have been reared ; and various gifts, 
scattered along our path, have told of open hands and lib- 
eral hearts. But we have as yet simply begun to learn and 
to do in this respect — as in most others. We have only 
to look at our Murray Fund, still incomplete, — and to 
reckon up the unfilled quotas of the Special Fund, called for 
to liquidate the debt incurred mainly by the mistaken policy 
of pouring all our Centenary receipts into the Murray Fund, 
leaving the expenses to be afterwards provided for, — 
and to consider the meagre revenue from the Missionary 
Boxes for the year past, and especially have only to read 



GIVING. 295 

over the returns of the last collection under the rules of our 
Convention, and to see how comparatively small is the num- 
ber of parishes (one hundred and sixty-four out of a reported 
aggregate of nine hundred and sixty-nine) which have taken 
the collection, and how comparatively small are most of the 
amounts given by those which have taken it, to perceive 
that we have a great deal more to learn, and a vast advance 
yet further to make, ere we shall fulfil our obligations by 
contributing the resources which our opportunities and our 
work require. 

Here, then, is a call for a New Departure which we can- 
not slight, if we are a Church of Christ, in this world to 
stay. God be thanked for all we have wrought and given ! 
Let there be no scolding or fault-finding towards anybody — 
only hearty commendation and encouragement for those who, 
in any measure, have done their duty. But we must recog- 
nize the facts as they are, and learn the lesson of an in- 
creased generosity. There must be more freedom, and 
largeness, and universality of giving, or the wheels of our 
activities cannot go on. Not some, but all of our ministers 
must be in sympathy with what as a Church we are trying 
to do, and enjoin on their hearers the duty of participating 
as they are able in these gifts to God and the Church — en- 
forcing their words by themselves giving as they can ; not 
a part, but all of our parishes must enroll themselves among 
those faithful in whatever collections or contributions the 
rules of our Convention or the exigencies of our work re- 
quire ; and more and more we must all feel the imperative- 
ness alike of the demand and of the obligation that we ' lay 
by us in store, as God has prospered us,' for the further- 
ance of our truth, and having remembered it according to 
this ratio while living, those blessed with means must fail 
not to bequeath something of the bounty God has bestowed, 
to help it forward, when they die. 

Dollars are 'the sinews of war/ as we witnessed to our 
cost, when it became necessary to roll up a debt of such 
frightful proportions in our contest with treason, for the sal- 
vation of our republic. They are equally the sinews of all 
organized effort. Little can be done in this world, in any 
field, without them. Commerce needs them. But so, not 



296 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

less, do labor, and law, and art, and philanthropy, and re- 
ligion ; and Universalism cannot be organized and pushed, 
nor our Church make itself felt to widest purpose, save as 
Universalists catch the impulse of generosity, and learn the 
grace of Giving. The sooner we all awake, in the pulpit 
and out of it, to a thorough comprehension of this fact, the 
better. " Give," said our Lord, "and it shall be given 
unto you." A great principle underlies these words. "There 
is that scattereth, and yet increaseth ; and there is that 
withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. 
The liberal soul shall be made fat ; and he that watereth 
shall be watered also himself." This is the Providential 
law — as true of churches or communities as of individuals ; 
and no church or denomination ever has prospered, or ever 
can prosper, except on the condition thus ordained. Christ 
gave himself, and those who took up his work gave their 
money, — those of them who had it, — themselves, their all, 
for his sake : how else could the first Christian Church have 
been planted, or could Christianity itself have become a 
power in the world ? And all through Christian history, 
the Church that has opened its hands and given the most, 
other things being equal, has been the Church which has 
taken widest hold of the popular heart, and gathered most 
souls about its altars. 

This is still the law ; and under it our future is to be deter- 
mined. If, therefore, we have really any desire to be a great 
Church, helping to save the world, here is one of the inex- 
orable conditions on which alone we can become so : We 
must give, and giving henceforth must be the rule and not the 
exception among us. Think of the munificent donations and 
bequests of which we are constantly hearing, bestowed for 
educational and church-uses by members of sister denomina- 
tions — and then of the innumerable little streams besides that 
are constantly flowing into their treasuries ! Making the most 
of them, how diminutive is our record, and how paltry our 
gifts in comparison ! It is time for us more profoundly to 
feel the rebuke, and to respond to the summons, that comes 
to us in such a comparison. We claim to have the faith most 
precious in itself, and that souls and the world most need. 
How, then, according to our means, can we be satisfied with 



GIVING. 297 

being less generous in our service of it than are others in their 
service of narrower and meaner faiths ? What is the specta- 
cle we present, and the conclusion we invite, if we are so ? 
It is very well for us to talk about the glory and excellence 
of Universalism, and its worth to souls, and the world's need 
of it : for all this is true. But how much are we sacrificing-, 
how much are we giving, how much are we doing for it ? 
This is the question that goes down underneath all talk, and 
tells the real story of our love for Universalism and our 
sense of its importance. And however beautiful or however 
true it may be, all talk about Universalism, or anybody's 
need of it, is mockery, is almost blasphemy, on the lips of 
any man or woman who is not giving for it as he or she is 
able. Having the best faith, Universalists ought to show 
themselves appreciative of it, quickened and enlarged by it ; 
and this is what we must show, learning the lesson of 
Church Beneficence as others learned it long ago, or our 
opportunities will be wasted, and the work we are wanted 
to do will be transferred to those willing to pay for the priv- 
ilege of doing it. To a noble mind, money is of no value in 
itself. Its value is solely in its uses. And no man is a 
Universalist really who, having money, does not regard it 
as God's bounty, put into his hands as a means of doing 
good, and therefore give according to his ability, glad to 
account himself God's almoner for the spread of His truth 
in the extension of our Church. What we want in this re- 
spect, and must have, if we are to be a living and growing 
Church, is a proper spirit of simple stewardship, mindful al- 
ways of Paul's axiom, "It is required in stewards that a 
man be found faithful." 

There are those who think we have had enough of this talk 
about money. When, they impatiently ask, are our parishes 
and people to have relief from these incessant appeals, that, 
like the daughters of Solomon's horse-leech, are forever cry- 
ing, Give, give ? Let such understand that, till the Church- 
militant becomes the Church-triumphant, and the world is 
redeemed, the only possible answer to their inquiry is, 
Never. As long as money is needed for anything in this 
world, it will be needed for the cause of Christ ; and as 
long as the Universalist Church lives and tries to grow, — ■ 



298 



OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 



and it will die, and deserve to die, whenever it ceases to try- 
to grow, — the cry will be, Money, money, for the work of 
the Lord. There is no discharge from this war. And the 
more we give, reaping results from what we give, the more 
we shall have to give — because our field will broaden, our 
opportunities multiply, our work increase, as the calls to 
which we shall have to attend will become more numerous 
and more importunate. Only by getting out of our Church, 
and out of all churches, and out of the world, can these 
questioners get relief from the appeal to give. 

Nor will these calls for money, as our Church will urge 
them, ever exceed our ability to answer them. There was 
a time when we were a poor people, and when great under- 
takings were impossible to us because we lacked the means 
to carry them forward. That time has happily ceased. 
With comparatively few very rich, we have few very poor. 
We are mainly constituted of the great middle class — 
among whom wealth is seldom concentrated in large for- 
tunes, but who have a great deal of diffused wealth. Of 
this we have our share, making us rich, — not as rich as 
some other churches, but rich nevertheless, with an ag- 
gregate wealth that would surprise us should we see it 
stated in the actual figures. We have the means, there- 
fore, to do whatever we may desire, or the demands of our 
cause make necessary ; and however large our plans, not 
one of them will need fail if we can but have all our pocket- 
books baptized and consecrated as they should be. There 
are too many, unfortunately, who fail to consider this, and 
who are still gauging our ability by the old standard of our 
former poverty instead of the new standard of our present 
affluence. All such gauging should cease. Making all due 
allowance for parishes that are weak, and struggling, and 
poor, God and the world have a right to expect that we 
shall devise and give according to our real possessions ; 
and we shall stand condemned and shamed if we fail to 
do so. 

We are, indeed, to guard against impatience and dis- 
appointment, and others, watching us, should guard against 
doing us injustice, if the lesson of Giving is not learned 
among us as rapidly as it might be. It is slow learning 






GIVING. 299 

hard lessons, even when there is nothing to be unlearned. 
How much slower it must be when there is so much to 
unlearn as in our case in respect to this subject ! Most 
unreasonable, manifestly, it would be to expect that a peo- 
ple not simply so untrained in systematic giving for church 
purposes, but drilled quite to the contrary, should at once 
rise out of the indisposition and irresponsiveness in which 
they have been educated, into the most generous compre- 
hension of duty, and pour out their gifts with the freedom 
and readiness of those who, through half a dozen genera- 
tions, have been trained to this very thing. Time is re- 
quired, in this as in everything else. Giving is a habit 
to be acquired, a grace to be cultivated, an attainment to 
be grown into. 

But while all this is to be duly taken into account, to 
prevent impatience and unreasonable expectations of imme- 
diate results, our obligations are none the less clear or 
imperative, and each year ought to show something gained, 
and as the consequence, a larger number of collections, and 
more bequests, and an increase of individual gifts, both as 
to number and amounts, and so a more gratifying sum- 
total of contributions for the endowment and extension of 
our Church. How can we look for the confidence or respect 
of other churches, or of the world, if it is not so ? This is 
a very real thing with us ; and more and more we should 
outgrow our indifference and irresponsiveness, our narrow 
and selfish ideas, and broaden into a beneficence as large- 
eyed and thoughtful and broad-handed as the Gospel whose 
name we bear. How we should give, if we should give in 
proportion to the breadth and generosity of this ! Especially 
should we make haste to outgrow and put away from us the 
fancy which so asserts itself in the minds of not a few of 
our ministers and people, that whatever is bestowed for 
work away from home is so much taken from the resources 
of home-interests, necessarily lessening to this extent the 
minister's means of living and the ability of the parish to 
provide for its own support. Perhaps there is no impression 
more mischievous than this, in hindering the general response 
we ought to have to the calls of our Convention and our 
cause. But it is totally unfounded, besides being very 



300 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

narrow and selfish. No impression was ever more thoroughly 
disproved by all experience. As, invariably, the men and 
women who are giving most frequently are they who give 
most willingly, so, as universally, the parishes which most 
cordially and liberally put themselves into accord with 
general church-plans and give for church-work, are the very 
parishes which are found most freely and punctually meeting 
all home demands. This is in the nature of things. Giving 
being, as has been said, a habit, to be acquired, it, like all 
other habits, grows upon us as it is practised. That genial 
brother and faithful minister, Otis A. Skinner — the story 
of whose good life and tragic death ought some time to be 
fitly told — was accustomed during his first canvass for 
Tufts College to illustrate this by reminding the people, in 
his pleasant way, that if one wishes his cow to be a good, 
free milker, he must see that she is milked regularly, every 
day. If she is not, she ' dries up.' And though the 
illustration is a little homely, and perhaps invites a repartee 
as to the priestly milking of the flock, it is nevertheless apt 
and suggestive. The way to get people to giving most 
readily is to accustom them to giving — guarding of course 
against unreasonable and excessive calls. The clasps of 
purses become rusty and hard to open in proportion as they 
are unused ; and the people whose hands it is most difficult 
to move into their pockets are those who never give — not, 
usually, because they are stingy, but because they have 
not formed the habit of giving. For this reason, the surest 
plan for making a parish prompt and liberal at home, is to 
enlist its sympathies and open the springs of its generosity 
with reference to the work of the church abroad. This 
is the rod of Moses which brings water even from the 
rock. 

There are two things, particularly, which we want in 
respect to this subject : 

1." We want among our people a sense of the fact that 
their religion is one of the objects which have a paramount 
right to their money. The idea now is, too generally, that 
religion and the church are among the last and the least of 
these objects ; that, in fact, it is doubtful whether they 
have any real claim upon what we pay for them ; and that, 



GIVING. 301 

if they have, it is rather by way of gratuity — because of 
our generosity, and not by way of right — because of any 
valid consideration which they can plead. It is time that 
all such conceptions of the subject were exploded. Let any 
man consider what Christianity has put into the world, and 
ask, whatever his character or possessions, what he would 
have, or be, were Christianity and all it has done for him 
and given to him taken out of his life, and out of the circum- 
stances amidst which his lot is cast, — or let him con- 
sider, so far as he has any actual faith in Christ, and es- 
pecially in our gospel of Universalism, what amount of 
money would purchase it, and he will soon see something 
of his debt to Christ, and something of what is the claim 
of his religion and his church to be counted first among the 
things to which his money belongs. Next to his home and 
his family, there is nothing for which any man is under 
such obligation to pay as he is to pay for his religion and 
his church ; and neither among us nor others will this matter 
of Religious Giving command the action to which it is en- 
titled until we all settle down into the recognition of our 
church-calls as among the primary and legitimate calls 
which must be met just as much as a business note, or the 
education of our children. Then, 

2. We want a regular system of Giving. I shall not 
here attempt to outline any such system. Each person and 
family can best determine this for themselves. Some men 
assign a fixed portion of their income for charitable and re- 
ligious purposes — like the merchant who, having read 
Jacob's vow, " Of all that Thou shalt give me, I will surely 
give the tenth unto Thee," opened a formal account with 
0. P. J. — the Old Patriarch Jacob, sacredly setting so 
much of all his gains apart to be given away. Others pre- 
fer to reach the same end in a less formal way. The way, 
however, is of small concern ; the end is the important 
thing ; and if, after any fashion, our people could be in- 
duced to incorporate Giving among the items of their annual 
expenditure, and then to systematize their Giving, so as to 
insure its due proportion of income for it, and its wise dis- 
tribution among the several objects which are entitled to 
remembrance, it can easily be seen how much would be 



302 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

gained for all the interests of our cause, and all the depart- 
ments of our Church-work. It is not to be doubted that 
there are those among- us who do this. Make the practice 
general, — above all, make it universal, and how much 
would be saved in the fret and friction of begging that 
would be avoided ! How abundantly all the streams of our 
activities would be fed ! With what smoothness every 
wheel and pinion of our methods would run ! And how 
our Church, able to respond to every call, — sowing, build, 
ing, gathering, growing, to the glory of God, would become 
a power as now it cannot be ! 

Let us hope that the time will come when Giving will be 
thus systematized by all our people. But in the mean time, 
our needs press. Demands upon us increase. Opportuni- 
ties offer. Pleadings for help, especially from innumerable 
points of the great West and North- West, and from the 
Pacific shore, come to us. How are these to be met ? How 
but by such an awakening to the subject as not even our 
Centenary Year witnessed ? Every minister and every be- 
liever should feel called of God and the Master to think and 
act in this regard as never before, that every source of rev- 
enue we have may be made productive to the largest degree 
possible. Every child should be educated to remember Christ 
and the Church, and to grow up a generous contributor in 
their behalf. Our Murray Fund must be completed — and 
increased, for, as the Board of Trustees well said in their 
last Report, u amidst the precarious and variable resources 
with which we carry on our work, the only certain and re- 
liable basis of operations is the Murray Fund, and the effi- 
ciency of the Convention, especially in church-extension, 
must always be in proportion to its assured income from " 
this source. Our Missionary Boxes must be remembered, 
and every home must do its part towards making them a 
success. Having originated them, will it not be a shame to 
us if, while other churches, appropriating them from us, roll 
up an income of from twenty to fifty thousand dollars a year 
from them, we so neglect as to realize little or nothing from 
them ? The Annual Collection required by the rules of 
our Convention must receive the attention and yield the 
returns from all our parishes which alike the necessities 



GIVING. 303 

of the case and allegiance to the Convention demand. la 
it creditable to us that with a roll of nine hundred and 
sixty-nine parishes, only one hundred and sixty-five last year 
gave this collection ? * 

But why enumerate ? The sole dependence of our Church 
is on the free-will offe rings of its members. We have no 
despotism to ordain levies, no machinery to compel unwilling 
• contributions. Our strength is in the loyalty, faith, earnest- 
ness and generosity of our people. If these fail, our Church 
fails, and as one of the organized forces of Christendom, 
we shall die and leave our errand unfulfilled. Are we to do 
so ? No! my confidence in the Universalists of America 
bids me answer in their behalf, and, No ! is the echo I hear 
from thousands of believing souls. Let us have the New 
Departure we need in this particular, then, — - and that 
straightway, insuring the prompter, larger, more general 
giving we so much need. There is use for large amounts ; 
and if the Convention had a hundred thousand dollars this 
very year, the whole could be wisely employed — and 
so employed as to gladden our hearts in the results that 
would follow. But the thing of most immediate importance 
is that all our parishes, all our ministers and people shall 
understand the legitimacy of these claims upon them, and 
put themselves into line by giving something. A recognition 
of our Church methods and calls, attesting thoughtfulness 

* I have referred above only to the sources on which our Church 
is immediately dependent for the means of doing its yearly work. 
But I should seriously fail in duty did I not also call attention to our 
Ministerial Relief Funds as objects of generous remembrance, that 
should every year grow, to make provision for those who, having 
unselfishly worn themselves out in the service of the Church, have no 
other human reliance to save them, or their families, from an old age of 
destitution. Never was money more worthily given than when Corne- 
lius Harsen gave his thousands to found the Harsen Fund in New 
York; and John G. Gunn did but imitate an honorable example when 
he devised his Eight Thousand Dollars to the General Convention, for 
"the relief, support and maintenance of needy clergymen, their widows 
and families, in the hope that others may be led to contribute to the 
same object." Let these Funds be remembered in the wills of dying 
Universalists ; and let similar Funds be founded by all our State Con- 
ventions, to plead as they must for the remembrance which their design 
will so well deserve. 



304 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

and sympathy with respect to them — this is the thing that 
presses now. Amounts are secondary to this. This secured, 
amounts will grow, and each year will render more generous 
returns. This, therefore, we must have. 

So only can we show ourselves as a Church thoroughly 
appreciative of the demands that crowd upon us, or duly 
put ourselves into accord with that pervading Law on which 
the harmony and very life of the universe depend. This is 
the Law of Benefaction. Everywhere we find it, and 
obedience to it. God is the great Giver, and out of His 
infinite fulness the streams of His beneficence inexhaustibly 
flow. What would become of us if it were not so ? And 
in its place, what does not, like Him, somehow impart? 
Nothing exists for itself alone. Every grain of sand is 
linked in unconscious brotherhood with every other, helping 
to hold it in place. The drops of the ocean, the rays of the 
sun, the leaves of the forest, everything that breathes or is, 
all own the necessity by which they act and re-act on each 
other. The ordinance of Giving thus stretches from mote 
to mote, from world to world, from constellation to constella- 
tion, weaving its wondrous net-work of kindly forces and 
binding all things in indissoluble unity to each other and to 
the throne of God. Nothing is too minute, nothing too 
vast to contribute its portion to the general good. 

Behold, then, the anomaly that Selfishness is, and how every- 
where God is rebuking and admonishing against it. It is 
shamed and outlawed by every atom and every world, by every 
manly impulse and every womanly sympathy, and crowning 
all the rest, by the great Love that never grows weary in 
bestowing, and by that life of unapproached sacrifice in 
which Christ gave himself for our sake. Where shall the 
selfish man, or the selfish parish find companionship or 
approval 'i Everything else owns God's ordinance, and 
gives as it can. But, living only as a pensioner on others' 
aid, — receiving, constantly, from innumerable sources, and 
fed, sheltered, blessed in a thousand ways, this man, this 
parish, while everything else is giving as well as receiving, 
slinks into the contracting shell of a mean selfhood, with 
hands out only to clutch whatever further comes in the way, 



GIVING. 305 

growling, Each for himself ; I do no more. Look at the 
man, look at the parish, standing so rebuked amidst the 
kindly fellowships of Nature, and in presence of God's 
bounty and Christ's cross, and let each take care that the 
rebuking angel does not point to us, saying, This is the 
parish, or thou art the man ! 
20 



CHAPTER XIX. 

DOING. 

It was said in the chapter on Our Ministry, that if, as a 
Church, we have any right to be, it is certain there is some- 
thing for us to do. And when we consider the circum- 
stances amidst which we find ourselves, how much there is 
for us to do ! Error, unbelief, indifference, poverty, sin, 
how numerous are the calls they make upon us, and how 
various the paths of activity they open, and the forms of ef- 
fort to which they invite ! Our own culture in right char- 
acter is our first duty, individually, as our fidelity to Christ 
and the Church is the first thing for us to think of, collective- 
ly, in this matter of Doing ; and what is the ideal of charac- 
ter towards which we should aim, what are some of the 
means we should employ, and with what ardor of consecra- 
tion we should give ourselves to that high personal Chris- 
tian living, and that depth and earnestness of church-life, 
which is alone in keeping with the demands of our Univer- 
salist faith, most of the preceding chapters have tried some- 
how to show. But any Doing that thinks only of ourselves, 
or our own interests, or even of our own moral and spiritual 
improvement, is not only unpardonably exclusive and selfish, 
but fails to fulfil one of the essential conditions on which 
alone our highest interests and best improvement are to be 
served. 

No life is complete lived in and for itself alone. We are 
whole only as parts of each other. The old saints, dwelling 
in caves and deserts, macerating their bodies, and thinking 
solely of their own victory over the flesh and the devil, were 
no saints at all — only so many pieces of utter religious self- 
ishness. The finest character is impossible in solitude. 
One must live in society, throbbing- with human sympathies, 
participating in human concerns, responding to human needs, 
to be largest, — human in the roundest and noblest sense. 

306 



DOING. 307 

Christ thought of himself, and of his own victory over temp- 
tation, and of his own loyalty to God, and gave much time, 
and struggle, and prayer to keep himself, while in, above 
the world ; but had this been all that he thought of, how- 
ever blameless he might have been in his purity and self- 
control, there could have been no Christ. In the very nature 
of his appointment, the Christ is a servant, — that is, a doer : 
as he himself said, " The Son of man came not to be minis- 
tered unto, but to minister ; " — " my meat is to do the will 
of Him that sent me, and to finish His work." In no single 
expression, perhaps, is so much summed up of all that most 
charms us in his life, as in the brief words, He " went about 
doing good ; " and should we strike out all that his love of 
the sinful, his kindness to the poor, his innumerable tender 
ministries to human want and sorrow, — in one word, his 
Doing, contributed to make him, how much would remain 
of all that the name of Christ now symbolizes ? Even God 
is most glorious because of what He is in the immeasurable 
empire of being as the One Ministering Spirit, doing good 
forever ; and were it possible for us to conceive of Him as 
dwelling solitary in His Eternity, living solely in and for 
Himself, most of what now moves us to love and adora- 
tion would be gone. 

These things being so, need it be said what is required 
before any man or woman can be a disciple of Christ, or 
(practically) a child of God, — before any Church can be a 
Church of Christ and a company of God's servants ? Doing 
is not only the active side of Being ; it is the indispensable 
condition of our best development, and the only method in 
which we can really glorify God, attest our love for Christ, 
or pay the world for the privilege of living in it. Accord- 
ingly, not, What wilt thou have me believe? nor even, How 
wilt thou have me feel f but, "Lord, what wilt thou have 
me to do ? " was the first outcry of the awakened and peni- 
tent Saul, as it is the first thought that comes to every 
truly awakened soul ; and Christ's word to all who bear his 
name, whether individuals or churches, is, "Ye are my 
friends if ye do whatsoever I command you/' and, "Not 
every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the 
kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father 



308 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

which is in heaven." Nor is it to be forgotten that the 
final test of acceptance or condemnation, in the parable 
which sets forth the principle on which our Lord, having 
' come ' to ' sit upon the throne of his glory/ is administer- 
ing his kingdom, is, not faith, nor feeling, nor any punctil- 
iousness in mere personal or church duties, but this same 
test of Doing : the words being, to those on the right hand, 
" Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these 
my brethren, ye have done it unto me ; " and to those on 
the left, " Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of 
these, ye did it not to me." From whatever point of view 
regarded, then, this subject of Doing is one that has weighty 
demands on our attention, alike as individuals and as a 
Church. 

What we are to do as individuals, in addition to what is 
required for our personal growth in holy character, there is 
here no space to say in detail. It is all included in the gen- 
eral statement, that life is to be accepted as a time to live 
and to labor for others as well as for ourselves, and that we 
are actively to enlist in every effort for the relief, improve- 
ment, and welfare of our fellow-men, to the full extent of 
our ability and opportunity. We are to enclose ourselves 
within no selfish ' metes and bounds ; ' are to be no drones 
in the great hive of the world's interests and activities ; nei- 
ther shirks nor cowards in the unceasing battle of life. We 
are, each one of us, in the world to do what we can to make 
it better and happier. Service is alike the law of humanity 
and the law of Christ ; and it is for each man and woman to 
ask, as in the presence of that eye from which nothing is 
concealed, What am 7" doing as a unit in the great sum of 
our race, and especially as a soldier in the army of Christ, 
to promote truth, to relieve distress, to instruct ignorance, 
to win back the wayward, to pull down wrong, to build up 
right ? — and to feel condemned if the answer must be, Noth- 
ing ; only meanly living for myself. We are grossly recre- 
ant to every obligation, if we do not, as we may, seek to 
render some service that shall count towards one or all of 
these ends outside ourselves. Here, as everywhere, even 
' the widow's mite ' finds acceptance, and does its part. " I 
see in this world," said Bishop Newton, "two heaps — one 



DOING. 309 

of human happiness and one of misery : now, if I can take 
but the smallest bit from the second heap, and add to the 
first, I carry a point. I should be glad to do great things ; 
but I will not neglect little ones." 

And this same spirit is to possess and impel us as a 
Church. Herein is the New Departure to which in this par- 
ticular we are called. We have not been altogether idle. 
For a hundred years, we have been doing — not always 
what we might have done, but often bravely, manfully, — 
sometimes, heroically. Not without much cost of labor and 
sacrifice have we as a Church come to be what we are. 
But, like all new religious movements — the usual neces- 
sity being in our case intensified because of our peculiar 
position and circumstances, our effort hitherto has mainly 
been a ' struggle for life. 7 Socially and theologically, every- 
thing has been against us. Not an inch of ground has 
been gained that has not been fought for. We have had 
our parishes to found, our church-edifices to erect, our 
ministry to support ; and these things being done, we have 
thought we had little time or means for anything else. 
Then, latterly, as we have grown stronger, the expansive 
instinct has asserted itself, and we have built schools and 
colleges, and set on foot a work of Church-extension — the 
logical moral sequence of our growth thus far, and a neces- 
sity, if we had any earnestness or honesty of conviction, 
that we might grow still further. Even in respect to these 
things, however, we have never yet been half enough in 
earnest, for the reason that we never yet, as a Church, have 
caught the full inspiration of our faith as an impulse to en- 
deavor, nor begun to realize what a stress of indebtedness 
comes from the possession of such a Gospel, requiring us to 
be up and doing to give it to others. Greatly more in ear- 
nest there is need for us to be, therefore, in our Doing even 
within the line of these special Church interests and obliga- 
tions. 

But this is barely the beginning of our Doing, if we are 
to prove ourselves a Church of Christ. To think only, as a 
Church, of the extension of our particular doctrines, and the 
enlargement and strengthening of our special sect, is as un- 
pardonably mean and selfish as it is for us, personally, to 



310 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

* 

think only of our own improvement, or our own gains. We 
exist to touch the world's error and evil at all possible sides, 
and to make ourselves felt in behalf of every interest of hu- 
manity, as positive workers for the advancement of the king- 
dom of God. Our obligations admit of no private, or local, 
or sectarian interpretation. We are in the world, a repre- 
sentative of Christ, to war and to help in behalf of truth and 
righteousness, in all directions and in every field, as he 
would were he personally here. His life gives us the key 
to our duty, as his spirit supplies our constant inspiration. 

Giving the ' Address to the People,' at the Dedication of 
the Church of the Paternity (Dr. Chapin's), in New York, in 
1866, after speaking of their personal and denominational 
duties, I said, — 

But you have, also, a membership in the great brother- 
hood of Christendom and the wider brotherhood of Hu- 
manity, and therefore have your general Christian responsi- 
bilities. See that you are no less true to these. You have 
named yourselves the Church of the Divine Paternity. Beau- 
tiful name, reminding us always of that sublime Father- 
hood of God which, including all souls as its children, 
watches over their welfare and works steadily for their re- 
demption. Fail not to catch the spirit thus indicated, and 
to labor, as you have opportunity, for the ends it seeks. 
Show that your religion is thoroughly practical ; that your 
love for God incarnates itself in love and work for man, and 
that every effort for the succor of the distressed, for the 
help of the poor, for the conversion of the sinful, by whom- 
soever made, is here sure of response and co-operation. 
Christianity means help, healing, salvation for the poor and 
the perishing ; and every Christian church should be, as far 
as possible, a never-failing fountain of help and healing. 
See that this Church becomes such a fountain. There is 
nothing that grieves me more, as I consider the position of 
our churches in this city and elsewhere, than the fact that 
we are so occupied with our own endeavors to live, that we 
fail of any active and independent .participation in the vari- 
ous ministries of social help and amelioration, in which so 
many other churches are engaged, and for which there are 
such imperative calls. Where are our schools for the poor 




DOING. 311 

and the friendless ? * Where are our missions to the degrad- 
ed and the destitute ? Where our ' Homes ' or Hospitals ? 
Where our associations for generous outlook and kindly care 
of any sort ? Except as our ' Sewing Societies ' may answer 
some charitable purpose, and as we contribute to sustain the 
philanthropic activities of others, we are in no way mak- 
ing ourselves felt among the practical Christian forces of our 
city, or of the country. The explanation, as I have sug- 
gested, is found in our circumstances. But in your case, 
this explanation no longer holds. With your resources, and 
your actual and possible strength, ought you not, as a 
church, to be doing some of this practical Christian work ? 
f Our faith is the soul of all generous and philanthropic effort. 
Take the lead in the liberality and earnestness with which 
all our churches will by and by address themselves to this 
kind of effort, and make for yourselves a name, by making 
yourselves a power, among the beneficent agencies that, in 
Christ's name, are seeking to carry physical relief and the 
means of spiritual instruction and elevation to those who 
are now destitute and astray, or who are sitting in the 
shadow of intellectual darkness and moral death. 

I make no apology for introducing here this extract from 
an Address to a particular church, for the sufficient reason 
that I could in no way better express what I believe is the 
call of God to all our churches, or more clearly indicate the 
New Departure with which this chapter is chiefly concerned. 
The time has come when, as a Church, we are summoned to 
broader aims and outlooks. We should no longer leave 
this whole field of philanthropic Christian toil to Christians 
of other names, nor be content with what individuals among 
us are doing. We have the faith which alone furnishes 
either the legitimate basis, or the best inspiration for this 
kind of labor. We have the means too — in men and 
women and money. It is for us to be true to our faith, by 
using these means in doing accordingly. The Church of the 

* Reference was made, in giving the Address, to a small, struggling 
Mission at Sixty-first Street, which had existed for several years, and 
which has now grown to hundreds, and made itself very useful. Pos- 
sibly a few similar schools may have since been founded by our friends 
in other communities. If so, where ? 



312 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

Divine Paternity has well led in founding its Chapin Rome 
for the Aged and Infirm. In due time, it will doubtless 
follow with other enterprises in the same broad field. The 
example should not be lost. Our whole Church, surveying 
the field — alas ! so sending to us its calls for succor and 
deliverance, should be profoundly agitated with the inquiry, 
What can we do ? and our individual churches should turn 
their attention to what is thus demanded, that, as they have 
the means, they may use them, and everywhere give evidence, 
as churches, that they have the mind which was in him who 
came " to preach the Gospel to the poor ; to heal the broken- 
hearted ; to preach deliverance to the captives, and recover- 
ing of sight to the blind ; to set at liberty them that are 
bruised." There is nothing like Christian work to vindicate 
the right of an individual or a church to the Christian name. 

" That little Mrs. is a noble woman," said a zealous 

Presbyterian, greatly prejudiced against Universalism, re- 
ferring to a Universalist lady much interested in philan- 
thropic work. False, and even mischievous, as he thought 
Universalism to be, he could not deny its worthiness as 
represented in such a doer ; and if, either personally or as a 
Church, we desire the Christian recognition to which we are 
entitled, this shows how we are to command it. We shall 
lack — and shall deserve to lack — the hearty respect of 
other churches, and the fullest confidence and hearing of the 
world, so long as we fail duly to put our faith into the 
philanthropic Doing by which only, as a part of our work, 
can it be fitly expressed. Meaning what Christ does, every 
church that assumes to bear his name should try to mean 
the same — and we above all others. 

Nor is this all. "Go ye into all the world, and preach 
the Gospel to every creature," was, in his final parting with 
them, Christ's solemn charge to those whom he had trained 
to be his messengers. It is no less nis charge to every 
church to-day, and to us as much as to any others. Just 
now, we are occupied in the work of consolidation and 
Church-extension at home ; but the time is near at hand, if 
it be not already here, when, in a New Departure, we must 
enlist also in effort to extend a knowledge of our truth 
abroad. Even now, as these lines are penned, an apostle 



DOING. 313 

from across the water is pleading among us for help to 
build a house of worship for his people in Scotland. Should 
his appeal be responded to, this, including what has before 
been done for him, will be our second step towards foreign 
missionary work, as, so far as I know, the mission of Kev. 
A. C. Thomas to England and Scotland, some years ago, 
was our first. 

History is prophecy. In the future as in the past, Chris- 
tianity can conquer new provinces from the domains of idol- 
atry and spiritual death only as Christendom sends out its 
missionaries, the heralds of the cross and the pioneers of its 
civilization. Every desert has its spots of verdure, which, 
if multiplied and extended by the sending out of seed and 
soil, would in time conquer the dearth and barrenness, and 
transform the desolation into one broad stretch of fields and 
gardens. So the world's evangelization has proceeded. So 
it must proceed. Working from every christianized point, 
Christendom must plant its missionary stations, to serve as 
centres of Christian influence ; and as these moral oases mul- 
tiply, and gradually widen and extend, the desert of heathen- 
dom will be possessed, and, becoming transformed into afield 
of Christian culture, will bear fruit to the glory of God. The 
foreign missionary work is as much a part of the work of 
the Church of Christ as its work at home. There were for- 
eign missionaries as well as home missionaries among the 
Apostles ; and from that hour to this, there never have been 
lacking those who have trod a similar path, enriching it with 
their example of fidelity, — often sanctifying it with their 
blood. Next to Christ himself, there is nothing that Chris- 
tianity could so little afford to lose as the record of what its 
self-sacrificing and heroic missionaries have done, make 
what abatements we may for mistaken motives, and even 
for (occasional) mercenary aims. Nor are foreign mission- 
aries any les% than home missionaries needed now. How 
little of the world is yet conquered to Christ ! And, with 
such an interpretation of the Gospel as we could bear 
abroad for the enlightenment of the nations, are we to have 
no part in extending his conquests ? Shame on us if we 
could think of such indolence and recreancy ! We are 
called to this field of Christian Doing no less than others, 



814 OUE NEW DEPASTURE. 

— nay, as soon as we are in a condition to respond, are 
called all the more imperatively than others by so much as 
we have a better Gospel to impart. How much significance 
for us there is in the words of the Japanese student, pro- 
testing against the attempt to convert his people to ' ortho- 
doxy ' ! "The Christianity which will bless Japan," he 
says, "is that of love, not that of hell fire. Perhaps' you 
may use hell fire ; but I am sure it will not work very well 
in Japan, for hell fire has been preached by Buddhist priests 
for more than a thousand years." What a call comes to us 
from such a statement, and from corresponding conditions 
elsewhere, summoning us to enter this field of missionary 
labor ! How much light and relief our message would 
carry, especially to those at all cultivated in their percep- 
tions, and accustomed, though dimly and superstitiously, to 
deal with the religious problems of being ! And are we 
always to slight such calls ? Impossible. It is as certain 
that the time is coming when Universalists will send out 
their missionaries, to bear the story of a merciful Father, 
and an omnipotent cross, and a world's redemption, to souls 
now sitting in darkness and famishing in their idolatries and 
superstitions, as it is that Universalism is the living Gospel 
of Christ, or that the Universalist Church has any business 
in the world. God hasten the time. 

And, impressed with all that this subject of Doing, in 
Christ's name and for the widening sway of his kingdom, 
means and includes, will we not all give ourselves to the 
New Departure it demands — so that, laboring with fresh 
zeal for our own spiritual culture, for the growth of our 
parishes, and for the enlargement of our Church, we may 
also work as never before for the relief, enlightenment and 
welfare of souls about us, and be ready to give and to do 
for the extension of our truth, for the succor of the dis- 
tressed, for the rescue of the perishing, for tlie conversion 
of the darkened and sinful, wherever our message can be 
borne ? 



CHAPTER XX. 

THREE WORDS. 

Herewith ends this plea for Our New Departure. Its 
original design included several other topics. Especially 
was it desired to have a chapter each on Our Relations to 
Other Churches, on Unbelief, and on Some Serious Questions 
touching the fact that, through social influences and other 
causes, so many of our youth have been, and are being, lost 
to us. But the topics could not be at all properly treated 
without swelling these pages beyond the limits assigned 
them. The field we have traversed, however, is a broad 
one — perhaps, for the present, sufficiently broad. Who, 
indeed, that has gone over it through these successive 
chapters, looking back upon it, can doubt that the New 
Departure herein suggested, could it take place at the 
several points indicated, all along the line of our thought, 
our work and our Church life, would give us, not only a 
spiritual awakening and impulse, but a commanding hold 
upon popular attention and sympathy, and a consequent 
practical efficiency, that would speedily make our Church 
the livest and mightiest agency for Christ, and for the arrest 
and conversion of souls, at present asserting itself in the 
world ? 

And now, reviewing these pages, and considering how 
this labor can be most fittingly closed, three words occur to 
me as best summing up what further needs to be said : 
Candor ; Loyalty ; Ignition. 

I. The first of these words — Candor — indicates the men- 
tal attitude and state of feeling towards us, which we have a 
right henceforth to demand and expect on the part of those 
who regard Universalism as false, — the New Departure to 
which they are called in respect to us. We make no com- 
plaint that our neighbors and friends disbelieve and oppose 

315 



316 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

Universalism, if, after duly informing themselves what it is 
and what are its alleged proofs, they think they see good 
reason to do so. On the contrary, if they have honestly 
and intelligently reached this conclusion, we aver it to be 
not only their right, but their duty, to disbelieve and oppose 
it — precisely as it is our right and duty to reject and op- 
pose ' orthodoxy/ holding the convictions we do. But it 
is no person's duty or right to misrepresent Universalism ; 
to oppose it, ignorant of what it is, and obstinately persist- 
ing that he will not be informed ; or to vilify and scandalize 
its believers, denying them the Christian name. Whatever 
their faults, the preceding pages may properly claim, in 
some degree, to express alike the faith, the aspirations and 
the purposes dominant in the Universalist Church to-day. 
Are they the faith, the aspirations or the purposes of infi- 
dels, or of a profane, bad people ? 

Reviewing our history, we see many things we could wish 
otherwise, though, all the circumstances being taken into 
account, we do not see how, under any law of intellectual 
or spiritual evolution with which we are acquainted, they 
could have been materially different ; and, considering our 
present condition, we confess a lack of many things which 
it would be well for us to possess. What Church does not ? 
But we are not infidels. We are not a people devoid of 
spiritual insight or concern, blindly and godlessly travelling 
towards the realities of the unseen world, unconscious of 
the solemnity of this life, or of that which is to come, and 
trying to deceive others into a like blindness and godless- 
ness. We believe that, here or anywhere, life is God's 
gift, and that He is continuously and mercifully over it all ; 
but we are profoundly impressed with its solemn meaning 
everywhere. We feel how much is, every moment, at stake 
in it. We see how solicitously God is seeking to make us 
aware of Him and of our obligations to Him, and to induce 
us, in a return of His love, to devote life to His service. 
We believe in our need of a Saviour, and in the Saviour 
God has sent. We believe there is no possible way of at- 
taining harmony with God, or with the laws of our own 
being, anywhere, except through the help of this Saviour, 
in the awakening, penitence and spiritual birth of which the 



THREE WORDS, 317 

New Testament is so full. We believe it to be guilt no less 
than folly to live for time and earth, as if they were all, and 
the soul nothing-. We believe in the penalties of irreligion 
and sin, and, as none others do, affirm that there is no 
escape from these penalties. And we are Universalists only 
because, in a study of God's Word and of the design of 
Christ's mission and the spirit of his character, we cannot 
be otherwise, and because we are sure that the Gospel as 
we interpret it has far greater power than any other concep- 
tion of Christianity to impress, arouse and convert, and thus 
to stir souls and consecrate them to God. Satisfy us that 
Universalism is not taught in the Bible and the life of 
Christ, or that anything else can do more to make God and 
Christ precious, and to further the salvation of men, and we 
shall at once renounce it, accepting what is better. 

And, all this being true, — true beyond peradventure or 
denial, — true on the authority of every fact or exposition 
that has a right to be considered in the case, — proved to 
be true by the unbroken testimony of an entire century, — 
is it to pass for nothing, and are we to be perpetually 
tabooed under the odium of an unfounded prejudice, as if, 
instead of being such a people, we were a band of religious 
freebooters, having nothing in common with Christian soci- 
ety, only hanging on its skirts to ravage and destro}^ it ? 
We protest against so great a wrong. We demand a new 
departure in this regard, and that every individual, every 
pulpit, every church, shall henceforth be held to be a wilful 
slanderer before God and man, that, overlooking what we 
are, dares to treat us as being what we are not. It is too 
late to plead ignorance of our position and character. We 
insist on being henceforth judged by them. 

How constantly we have been otherwise judged, no one 
acquainted with the facts need be told. The Evangeli- 
cal Alliance, lately in session, assumed to represent the 
whole Protestant Christian world, and so impertinently 
pushed us outside the Christian household — as one of the 
papers submitted to it, and, much to the shame of the body, 
received without rebuke, wickedly classed us among "the 
factors of American Infidelity." And this illustrates the 
common ' evangelical ' policy towards us. Occasionally, 



318 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

some catholic mind, while thinking us in error, has recog- 
nized us as none the less Christian, and searching to know 
exactly in what our error consists, has been disposed to 
meet us with honest reference to the principles really in- 
volved. But such instances have been so rare as to render 
the rule the more conspicuous, and — unfortunately for any 
general imitation of the example — have almost invariably 
resulted in the conversion of such antagonists into believers, 
as the persecuting Saul, meeting the Lord, became the con- 
secrated Paul. The rule has been contemptuous neglect, or 
systematic misrepresentation. Large numbers have super- 
ciliously affected to regard Universalism as a vagary so wild, 
with adherents so vulgar or vicious, as to be beneath notice ; 
while those who have given it attention have done so only 
to misstate or caricature the doctrine, to travesty its argu- 
ments, to slander and abuse its believers. Any one of the 
numerous tracts, sermons or books against it will sufficiently 
attest this. 

Our friends ' of the contrary part ' seem, indeed, to have 
found it impossible to entertain the first conception of what 
candor with respect to us requires. Their usual answer to 
the question, "Have you ever read a Universalist book? is, 
"No, and I do not wish to." Or, if, perchance, our books 
are appealed to, and apparent authorities are cited, it is, 
commonly, to show that they have been shamefully garbled 
— as some of these pages are almost certain to be, or that 
they have been read only to cull from them the most objec- 
tionable possible statements, and to parade exceptional 
theories, or incidental speculations, as if they were the very 
substance of Universalism itself. Robert Hall, the great 
English preacher, who scarcely had a second as a representa- 
tive Baptist, like our own Walter Balfour, against the 
general sentiment of his denomination, denied the natural 
immortality of the soul. In like manner, in the entire free- 
dom of opinion, on the one basis of the Bible, which has 
prevailed among us, and which, it is to be hoped, always 
will prevail, some even of our representative men have held 
opinions not generally accepted among us, while others in 
no sense representative have put forth their personal notions, 
or idiosyncrasies — some of them of the crudest sort. But 



THREE WORDS. 319 

these opinions, or notions, have never been Universalis!!. 
Every one of them might be exploded — as most of them 
have been — and Universalism would not be touched. A 
fortress is not carried because some of the sorties from it 
have been defeated, or some of the works appended to it — • 
though built by the highest officers in command — have 
been stormed. As little importance have these personal or 
incidental opinions among Universalists, representative or 
otherwise, as related to our central position. And yet, 
these are the things — for the most part, the only things — 
which, whenever any seeming is made of quoting us, are 
put forth as showing what Universalism is ! — things which 
are no more Universalism than bubbles, or straws, on the 
surface of a stream are the stream itself. 

Should I represent the Baptists as committed to the non- 
immortality of the soul, and quote Robert Hall as proof, I 
should be justly denounced not merely as uncandid, but as 
dishonest. The fact that a certain idea is held by one man, 
or by any number of men, no matter how eminent, in a 
denomination, it would be said, is no warrant for charging 
that idea upon the whole denomination, or for holding the 
general doctrinal system of the body responsible for it. On 
what fundamental basis does the denomination stand ? 
What are its cardinal principles, — the ideas to which, as a 
denomination, it is committed ? These are the questions, it 
would be agreed, which, controverting any denomination's 
position, candor is obliged to ask, and the answers to which 
must be the ground of objection and argument, if fair and 
Christian opposition is to be made. 

And this, as our Church enters on the second century of 
its history, is the new departure which Universalism has a 
right to demand of its non-believers. Let those who think 
they must, reject or oppose it. But let them understand 
why, and deal with the real issue it tenders. There are 
theories and opinions which, limited for time as most of us 
are, we are justified in putting summarily aside. But Uni- 
versalism is not one of these. True or false, it touches all 
that is most momentous in the interests of souls and of the 
universe. Not only everything most vital in theology, but 
everything most fundamental in morals is involved in it. 



320 OUR NEW BEPARTURE. 

God's glory, Christ's honor, man's duty and destiny, all 
hinge upon it. If it is true, it is the grandest, most inclu- 
sive, most inspiring of all truths, shedding its light into the 
darkest recesses of human experience, and sounding its 
messages of hope through the deepest and awfulest caverns 
of depravity and spiritual death. If it is false, all things 
are shadowed in gloom ; not even the most loving Christian 
is assured of a desirable destiny, and there is occasion for 
us all to wring our hands in a perpetual agony of suspense 
and pain. This being so, no one with a head or a heart can 
afford to be indifferent to it, or can be justified in ignoring 
it, or in dealing with it in any other than the most earnest, 
most reverent, most candid spirit. The best thought, the 
most intelligent appreciation, the most prayerful study can 
give it no more than it deserves. 

Nor does the nature of the subject alone commend it to 
respect and investigation. The proportions which as a 
Christian conviction it has again attained urge the same de- 
mand. I say again attained, because, before the corruptions 
of Christianity began, Universalism, as we believe, was the ac- 
cepted Christian faith, so that whoever denied or questioned 
it parted company so far not only with Christ and the Apos- 
tles, but with the whole Church. Not here to make a point 
of this, however, it is enough to say that Universalism is no 
longer the insignificant whimsey which, some years ago, it 
might have been held to be. Then its friends were few, its 
resources limited, its organization — if it could be called or- 
ganization — chaotic, and all its means of influence small. 
But that time has passed. In spite of opposition, contume- 
ly and studied misrepresentation on the part of its enemies, 
and — what have been far worse for it — of numerous specu- 
lative errors and practical mistakes and short-comings on 
the part of its friends, it has now grown to a prevalence 
which entitles it to command consideration, and which no 
one aiming at any intelligent idea of the spiritual facts 
and tendencies of the time can afford to overlook. Not to 
speak of schools and colleges, or of the numbers, wealth, 
social position, learning, or moral worth, which the Univer- 
salist Church organically represents, Universalism has come, 
confessedly, to be a power among the elements of modern 



THREE WORDS. 321 

Christian thought and life. Rev. Dr. Pattern, of Chicago, 
not long ago, in a labored paper against it, was obliged to 
concede that Universalism is " a subject so close to human 
feelings " that "there need be no apology for discussing " 
it ; that " it attracts increased attention daily in the theo- 
logical world ; " that " we can hardly conceive that a good 
man should be without sympathy with such longings and 
hopes " as it ministers to ; that the doctrine was " enter- 
tained by John Frederic Oberlin and John Foster, after 
an examination of the subject in the light of reason and the 
Word of God;" that "not a few Christians lean decid- 
edly towards " it, " while the contrary view is accepted 
by yet others only with painful doubt and a sense of con- 
flict ; " and that " learned orthodox commentators such as 
Neander, Tholuck, Olshausen, and Lange " are among those 
who favor it.* 

And this being the testimony which its bitterest opponents 
are compelled to give concerning it, the time has evidently 
gone by for anybody to treat Universalism as if it were an 
obscure and contemptible heresy, with no friends to give it 
respectability, with no prestige to entitle it to attention. 
It is all about us, with everything best on its side ; and while 
Dr. Patton is forced to admit that ' orthodoxy ' is " accepted 
with painful doubt and a sense of conflict," and Dr. Edward 
Beecher testifies that it involves difficulties which are " felt 
by sanctified, humble and reasonable minds in proportion as 
they become holy, humble and reasonable/' Universalism is 
penetrating all churches, and, as a deep, underlying conviction, 
or hope, is making friends and converts among their adher- 
ents and even their ministers, for the reason that, as Olshau- 
sen has said, " the feeling is deeply rooted in all noble minds, 
and is the expression of a desire for the perfected harmony 
of the universe, " and because it is in so many ways proving, 
as distinguished authority once said it was destined to prove, 
" an exquisite adaptation to the spiritual wants of this dis- 
tracted age." 

If, then, our brethren of the traditional creeds will insist 
that Universalism is false, they should make due account of 

* These extracts are quoted from a review of Dr. Patton, in the Uni- 
versalist Quarterly, Vol. viii. p. 182, by Rev. G. T. Flanders, D. D. 
21 



322 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

the new conditions under which the warfare against it is to 
be waged, and modify their methods accordingly. Neither 
neglect, on the one hand, nor abuse and defamation, on the 
other, will further answer. A system for the satisfactions 
of which our whole nature, when at all awakened, is hun- 
gering, and on whose behalf so much is to be said by way of 
argument and proof, — which alone harmonizes reason, con- 
science and the analogies of nature with the Word of God, 
and whose principles are the only principles that any Chris- 
tian can put into life, — which touches questions so vital 
and tremendous, and whose roots so stretch down into the 
heart of things, taking hold of all that concerns human wel- 
fare, and twining underneath the very throne of God, — 
which can alone solve the problems that most perplex us, 
irradiate the universe with the presence of an Infinite Love, 
or give peace to believing souls, — a system which, num- 
bering the noblest and most learned of the fathers, with 
Origen at their head, among its early advocates, can point 
also to such men as Archbishop Tillotson, Sir Isaac Newton, 
Soame Jenyns, William Law, Bishop Newton, Dr. Priestley, 
Oberlin, Neander, John Foster, and Maurice among its later 
friends, — which inspires all our best poetry, and sums up 
the result which every fresh revelation of science suggests, 
and every deduction of philosophy prophesies, — which is 
1 orthodoxy ' in Germany, and which is honeycombing the 
Church of England, as well as all branches of the American 
Church, — which, as we have seen, contains within itself 
such a fulness of truth and law, and motive and appeal, for 
the grandest spiritual results, — which to-day exhibits on 
the roll of its living defenders, or believers, so large a pro- 
portion of the world's best names, in all fields of study and 
intellectual achievement, and which, confessedly, has so 
much in the number, standing, culture and character of its 
organized adherents to deserve and compel respect — such 
a system, we submit, is no longer to be brushed aside as of 
no account, or misrepresented with impunity, or flippantly 
declared to be absurd or unscriptural ; and as little is it to 
be disposed of by denouncing its believers as vulgar and 
ignorant nobodies, infidel in opinion, devoid of religious con- 
science or purpose, and abandoned in life. It has won its 



THREE WORDS. 323 

place as one of the leading factors in the sum of the world's 
religious life, and it must be respected and dealt with ac- 
cordingly. 

Addressing ourselves, then, to those who reject Univer- 
salism, and especially to those who count it their duty to op- 
pose it, we demand — by every law of what is gentlemanly, 
courteous, Christian, — nay, by every law of simple decency, 
have we not a right to demand ? — that they honorably ac- 
cept the facts, and understanding what Universalism is and 
who we are, henceforth in the new departure suggested, 
treat it and us with the Candor and Truthfulness to which 
we are entitled, — ceasing their aspersions on our charac- 
ters ; according us the Christian recognition which belongs 
to us ; fairly stating our position ; honestly dealing with 
our fundamental principles, and making their attacks, ' man- 
fashion/ on our citadel, instead of keeping up a boyish fusil- 
lade against anybody's personal outworks, and trying in the 
smoke and noise to make-believe that there is nothing else. 

We ask nothing on the score of favor. In no way are 
we dependent on the countenance of these friends who so 
insist on treating us as heathen and outlaws. We court 
none of their patronage, and should resent any attempt to 
patronize us should they make it. Alike their smiles and 
their fellowship, on the one side, and their opposition or 
contempt, on the other, are no more to us than ours are to 
them. We feel ourselves in every particular their peers, 
with a Christian standing as legitimate and unqualified, with 
every Christian prerogative as much beyond question — en- 
titled to expect from them all that they can properly expect 
from us, or from each other. Are they Christians ? so are 
we. Are they believers in God and lovers of man ? so are 
we. Are they laborers for the world's redemption ? so are 
we. Are they ministers of the cross ? We are more, be- 
cause ministers of a cross omnipotent, preaching a Saviour 
who can know neither failure nor defeat — in faith more 
abundant ; in expectations larger and more exultant ; in as- 
surance of victory more complete. In no sense more than 
they are we ' strangers and foreigners ' in the Christian 
camp. By birth, inheritance, conviction, as much as they, 
we are " fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the house- 



324 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

hold of God, and are built upon the foundation of the Apos- 
tles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief 
corner-stone." We claim, therefore, only our equal rights. 
We ask for simple justice, as Christians among Christians. 

Nor is it, mainly, for any reason personal to ourselves 
that we make this demand. We make it in behalf of the 
Christian cause. Men are nothing. Christ is everything. 
And for the sake of Christ, now in his Church so divided, 
dishonored, weakened, by these petty tests, by these parti- 
san alienations, by these unauthorized lines of division and 
exclusion, we protest against these things, and for ourselves 
and others demand that his law of fellowship be the only 
one known among his professed friends. He builds his 
Church on the rock of his Messiahship as the Son of God ; and 
whoever stands on this is a member of his body, entitled to 
the sympathy and fellowship of every other member as a 
brother in the Lord. Sects and parties as such may estab- 
lish whatever terms of fellowship they choose, and, building 
whatever walls they wish, may admit or exclude whomsoever 
they will. But when it comes to the broad question of mem- 
bership in the Church of Christ, every one of these walls 
must fall, and every one of these private tests give way. 
To be entitled to recognition as a Methodist, a Presbyterian, 
an Episcopalian or a Universalist, is one thing ; to be en- 
titled to recognition as a Christian is quite another ; and 
whoever, in the narrowness of his sectarian spirit, assumes 
to set up his particular walls as the walls of Christ's Church, 
and to say that only those who use his private passwords 
and accept his creed, are to be acknowledged as Christians, 
invades the liberty of every Christian soul, and insolently 
dares to put himself in place of Christ. 

Already, we are glad to see, able and catholic men, per- 
ceiving the soundness of this principle, are pushing the 
question whether it is expedient or Christian longer to deny 
us what, on such a basis, is so indisputably our due. Such a 
re-action and debate are only what we have always been sure 
would at some time come. The sentiment of justice may for 
a while slumber, but it never fails at length to assert itself. 
Our demand is that the agitation go on until our rightful 
place is confessed ; and if, so undeniably equitable as our 



THREE WORDS. 325 

claim is, those who call themselves ' the church evangelical ? 
will not take this new departure, and give us what they no 
longer have even the semblance of an excuse for denying, 
the motive will not fail to be understood, and on them will 
fall the consequences. They will be crushed under the 
wheels of an advancing Christian sentiment, while ' the 
world 7 will accord to us what a besotted and recreant 
'Church withholds. With confidence, we ' bide our time 7 
and wait the issue. - 

II. Loyalty. Reference was made in our second chapter 
to those who, believing Universalism, are identifying them- 
selves with other churches, or, worse still, drifting outside 
all churches, without religious association anywhere. It is 
one of our great misfortunes that there are so many such. 
Rev. W. E. Manley, in a recent communication to one of 
our papers, describing an interview with the late General 
Winfield Scott, reports him as saying, " I do not see how 
any man can read the Bible, and not be a Universalist. I 
am an Episcopalian because I was born and brought up in 
that church ; but I don't believe their dogmas." Who with 
any considerable acquaintance, does not know scores, — 
possibly hundreds, whose position is thus substantially de- 
scribed ? Visiting one of the finest and most extensive es- 
tablishments in the city of my residence, shortly after taking 
my present charge, I congratulated the proprietor on his suc- 
cess, and received this reply : " All I have here achieved has 
been built up on the principles of Universalism — God the 
universal Father, and all men brethren." And yet this man, 
an avowed Universalist, and thus recognizing his obligation 
to put his faith into his business, though he knows how 
much Universalism in Philadelphia is needing him and all 
like him, is a member of a Methodist church, the teacher 
of a Bible class in a Methodist Sunday-school, and one of 
the active and generous leaders of a Methodist congrega- 
tion, putting his children into associations in which they are 
being trained away from what he advocates as truth ; help- 
ing to keep in countenance the assumptions which exclude 
his fellow-believers from Christian recognition ; and con- 
tributing all he has and is to the support and furtherance 



326 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

of what he pronounces a gross perversion of the Gospel ! 
The most busy and talkative Universalist whom I have met 
in Philadelphia never comes near our churches, but identifies 
himself with the Episcopalians, throwing whatever social in- 
fluence he has into their scale, and against what he is so 
busily fond of talking about as the truth ! And in a conver- 
sation with me once, he named several of the most prominent 
Episcopal churches of our city, saying that one half of the 
congregation of one, a third of another, and a quarter part 
of still another were, to his certain knowledge, undisguised 
Universalists, and that all the churches were full of them ! 

And these men, and all these people, as every intelligent 
person knows, are but representatives of multitudes all over 
the land. Even ' evangelical ' pulpits are not without such. 
A Methodist minister came to me not long ago, avowing 
himself a Universalist, and desiring a comparison of views. 
I urged him to be an honest man and put himself before the 
world as his conclusions required ; but subsequently, return- 
ing some books I had loaned him, he sent me a note, in 
which, though reiterating his faith in Universalism, he said, 
" I am bound by virtue of some pecuniary aid I received 
while preparing for the ministry, to be a Methodist Episco- 
pal minister, and I am not able to make good the money, 
which I must do, with interest, if I leave the Methodist 
Episcopal church. 77 So he remains in the Methodist minis- 
try ; but he could not close his. note without revealing a 
consciousness of his false position by " hoping " that I 
would " be charitable " towards him, and that he had " not 
fallen in my estimation because of the course that he was 
in honor ( ! ) bound to take " ! Nor, I have reason to be 
well assured, is he the only Universalist in the Methodist 
ministry. There are many like him. Other churches are in 
a similar condition. A young man recently left our ministry 
for the Episcopalians, distinctly certifying the Bishop, as I 
am informed, that in no particular had his opinions changed, 
but that he was pleased with their forms, and thought he 
could be happy in their work. He is at present an Episco- 
pal pastor in Philadelphia. But why multiply examples ? 

The time was when to identify one's self with a given de- 
nomination, in the pulpit or the pews, indicated an accept- 



THREE WORDS. 327 

ance of the creed of that denomination. But such identifi- 
cation is no longer evidence to this effect. Said the Meth- 
odist minister above referred to, in his note to me, " As 
the great object of preaching is the improvement of man- 
kind, I hope that I may do good in whatever church I 
labor " — as if ' the improvement of mankind ' did not 
require the preaching of the truth, and as if what one be- 
lieves, or whether the church in which he labors stands for 
what he believes, were a question not worth the asking! 
And in much the same spirit, the idea has come strangely 
to prevail that if one 'tries to do about right/ it matters 
nothing what ■ meeting ' he attends, or in what pulpit he 
preaches, or whether he sincerely holds or preaches the doc- 
trines of the Church with which he is connected or not ! 
In fact, public sentiment has become shamefully debauched 
in regard to this subject. Anything like absolute respon- 
sibility to what is believed to be religious truth is, to a fear- 
ful extent, ignored ; and Pilate's question, if not in so many 
words, and in his sneering contempt for a thing so impal- 
pable, is, virtually, and in much of his utter unconcern, the 
question of a host of people to-day, " What's truth " com- 
pared with fashion, or popularity, or convenience, or fancy, 
or any whim or indifference that may chance to take us ? 

"An Orthodox Minister," in a recent magazine article 
of no small significance, arraigns the whole ' orthodox 
Protestant ' church as full of defection from the creeds, 
and says, " There can be no doubt that there are thousands 
in the Protestant churches to-day, who, if required publicly 
to renew the same confession of faith which they made 
when they first entered the church, could not do it consci- 
entiously. But the church accepts their external adherence, 
though cognizant of their heart-defection, and thus becomes 
a particeps criminis to a system of deceit which effectually 
undermines all integrity of character, sacrificing that for 
which alone the church was established, for the sake of an 
appearance of doctrinal soundness ; preserving the shell, 
but destroying the kernel ; debauching the conscience for 
the sake of preserving the creed intact." * Does anybody 

* Scribner's, for July, 1873, p. 298. 



328 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

doubt that the most of this apostasy is in the direction of 
Universalism, more or less pronounced ? There is probably 
not a single Protestant sect without Universalists in its 
ministry ; and it is doubtful if there is a congregation of 
any Protestant name, particularly in those portions of the 
country where the leaven of our principles has been at all 
diffused, that has not more or less Universalists in it, while, 
like the Episcopal churches in Philadelphia which have been 
alluded to, many would show large numbers of them. And 
when to these we add the other class, — probably as many 
more, who, while theoretically with us, are religiously home- 
less, helping to swell the vast throng of ' the unchurched/ 
we have a condition of things which may well arrest atten- 
tion, astounding every honest mind, and which, as we reflect 
upon it, shows the occasion we have to protest and appeal 
for its correction. Every day, the inquiry more seriously 
presses, How shall these disloyal multitudes be reached and 
awakened to see how weak, how dishonorable, how wrong 
their false position is ? 

So far, then, as I can secure their hearing, I address 
myself to these multitudes in the name of the truth they 
are defrauding, and of the Church to which their sympathy 
and service should be given, calling them to anew departure. 

I plead with them to look at what they are doing, in the 
light of its consequences. Not to speak of the suspicion 
and dishonor that would be brought upon the faith thus 
treacherously held by the failure of so many to perceive any 
moral or religious meaning in it, or to catch from it any 
hint of obligation to it, were it not that Christ himself had 
just such disciples, and that no form of Christian doctrine can 
plead exemption from such believers, I ask them, first, to con- 
sider how much is lost to the truth, and to all the interests 
which the truth concerns, in the faithlessness of so many 
thousands, whose numbers, wealth, intelligence and social 
standing would so re-enforce our Church, and at once increase 
its power ! Give to Universalism all that thus, in common 
honesty, belongs to it, and straightway, not twofold simply, 
but tenfold at least would its weight as an organized religious 
force be augmented. Then, on the other hand, I appeal to 
those in other churches who should be with us, to consider what 



THREE WORDS. 329 

a fictitious show of strength is imparted to error, and how its 
hold upon the popular faith and sympathy is made to seem so 
much more than it actually is, — and what a preponderance of 
ecclesiastical and religions influence, which in no way belongs 
to it, is thus given it, — and what a most improper advantage 
is accorded to it as such multitudes of children are placed 
in its hands for education, by parents who have themselves 
repudiated it, — and how the progress of truth is hindered 
and postponed by those who should be its friends, as, in 
manifold ways, they become the allies and helpers of doc- 
trines which they have not only rejected, but which they 
profess to abhor, — and how thus the dominion of error is 
prolonged, and souls caused to suffer, and the deepest life 
of the world denied the ministries it needs ! And then, 
turning to the homeless drifters, who should be in our 
churches, but who permit themselves to be dissipated among 
the non-religious, — many of them among the irreligious, 
elements of our communities, I ask them to consider how 
they are helping, though professing- sympathy with religious 
ideas, to multiply and strengthen the agencies that are at 
work to break up all churches and to disintegrate Christian 
society itself, while their children go their way, to be trained 
in false conceptions of God and the Gospel, or to run loose 
without any religious training — the ' gamins ' of our re- 
spectable Christendom ! 

Will anybody say that all these are things of no account, 
— to be made light of, or to be suffered to go on, with no 
sense of condemnation because of them on the part of those 
to whose charge they are to be laid, and with no effort 
towards remedy by those who witness them ? Are they not, 
on the contrary, things of grave and threatening import ? 
And should not all who love loyalty and justice, of what- 
ever creed, cry out against them, and do not you who are 
responsible for them owe it to yourselves, and your children, 
and truth, and the world, and all that is involved, to review 
the whole subject, and to resolve on an immediate departure 
in the direction of honor and honesty, that will put you in 
your true relations ? 

But there is something deeper and more serious than 
mere consequences for these disloyalists, whether in or out 



330 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

of other churches, to think of in regard to this subject, viz., 
the principles which their disloyalty ignores. Consequences 
are largely on the surface. Principles are substantive 
and central. Consequences we may sometimes disregard. 
Principles never. Loyalty is simple fidelity ; and the 
obligations to fidelity are universal. On no possible ,plea 
can any man or woman for a moment be justified in except- 
ing his or her opinions from the sweep of these obligations, 
or in thinking fidelity less a binding or solemn duty with 
reference to opinion than with reference to country, or 
family, or plighted faith of any sort. What is owed to 
Opinion is as actual a debt as what is owed to the butcher or 
the baker. All moral obligations have finally the same roots ; 
and no man is a true man who is false to any of them. 
Honesty, if real, is absolute, pertaining to the whole sub- 
stance of a man's life — as fineness and strength pertain 
not to spots of a piece of cloth, but to the whole web, if it 
is fine and strong. Show me a man dishonest in one thing, 
even the least, and I will show you a man who, on sufficient 
occasion, will be dishonest in anything. An honest man is 
not a man honest in some relations, or in reference to some 
trusts, but a man honest through and through, — in all rela- 
tions, in reference to all trusts ; honest towards God as well 
as towards man ; honest in things innermost as well as things 
outermost. A vase is marred, wherever or however cracked. 
So is integrity. It is integrity only so long as it is complete. 
" Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in 
one point, is guilty of all." 

Will any one dispute these statements as statements of 
principle ? If not, it is easy to see what follows. The 
obligations to Opinion are of precisely the same nature as 
those imposed by any other trust, and disloyalty to them, 
therefore, is in essence the same as treason to one's 
country, or as bad faith, treachery, disloyalty in business, 
in politics, in friendship, in anything else. It is falseness. 
It is dishonesty. Is it not worth while, then, for you who 
are thus disloyal to consider in whose company you are ? 
There is, so far as I know, but one opinion of Judas and 
Arnold. Would it not be well for you who are helping to 
swell the verdict against these men, and who would feel 



THEEE WORDS. 331 

insulted and indignant to be suspected of disloyalty to patri- 
otism, to friends, to any domestic or social obligation, and 
who are yet every day, in your treachery to what you hold 
as truth, practising a faithlessness quite as culpable in God's 
sight, to try to see yourselves, in such a comparison, as God 
and all brave and noble minds see you ? 

Opinions are unseen and impalpable, it is true. But a 
trust is a trust, be it what it may. Should some person 
place in the hands of any one of you people, so faithlessly 
holding Universalism, a hundred dollars for the relief of the 
poor, or for any other specific purpose, and he should put it 
unused into his pocket, or in any way prove recreant to the 
stewardship, how many of you all would think it a matter 
of no importance, or hesitate to say, He is a dishonest man ? 
But is recreancy to truth — or what is believed to be truth 
— less a dishonesty, because truth cannot be weighed or 
counted ? Is falsity of position as to one's convictions less 
a faJsity, because convictions cannot be handled or seen ? Is 
good faith, is loyalty, conditioned on the material substance 
or avoirdupois of things, and not on their essence ? So evi- 
dently judged my ministerial Methodist acquaintance, since 
he felt " in honor bound " to think a great deal of the money 
men had loaned him, and nothing of the truth God had given 
him ! And on this point he but illustrates the judgment of 
the entire class he represents. 

How much such need to think what opinions are ! " The 
things which are seen are temporal ; but the things which 
are not seen are eternal." Ideas, opinions rule the world. 
Impalpable, unseen though they are, they underlie all things, 
and are the seed of God's grandest harvests. As such, 
there is no other trust so sacred. How else could one be 
justified in holding them at the price of martyrdom ? Final- 
ly, indeed, there is nothing in this world but ideas ; and in 
the last analysis, there is neither permanence nor power in 
anything but religious ideas. Religion being the life of 
souls, if the world is ever to be regenerated, it is to be by 
means of religious truth, — if Christianity be from God, by 
means of Christian truth. How solemn, then, the interests 
with which one trifles, — how grave the disloyalty of which 
he is guilty, who, having decided convictions touching any 



332 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

question of Christian doctrine, conceals, deserts, or, on any 
plea, proves faithless to them ! What disloyalty so crimi- 
nal ? or which one of you all, practising it, can tell how- 
many lives you are helping to poison, or how wide or disas- 
trous the consequences of your faithlessness are to be ? 
"If any man come to me," said Christ, -''and hate not, his 
father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and 
sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." 
What was this but saying, in effect, that loyalty to opinion 
must be held the supreme duty ? and what would he who 
spoke these words say to you who, professing faith in him, 
are for any reason proving false to your faith, could he speak 
to you to-day ? Better, if the choice must be made, deser- 
tion of friends, and disloyalty to country, and a disregard of 
all human relations, than treachery to this supreme trust of 
truth. 

Applying to every opinion sincerely held, all this has spe- 
cial force in respect to Universalism. All trusts are sacred, 
but some place us under special obligation ; and when we 
consider what Universalism is, — the deplorable results, the- 
oretical and practical, of the theology it aims to supplant, 
— the influences which are conspiring against it, and all that 
helps to make up the case, we cannot fail to see that it is 
such a trust. 

Looking at what it would displace, we see this. For those 
professing to believe the traditional theology of the Church, 
I have only words of kindness and — so far as they give 
evidence of sincerity — respect. Nor can we doubt that, 
with its many errors, this theology has elements of truth 
which have done much good service. But speaking of its 
radical and characteristic principles, if God is good, and 
Universalism be true, what is there falser or more perni- 
cious ? Let its own deponents answer. Dr. Lyman Beecher 
and authorities no less eminent long ago confessed that 
nearly all the infidelity of Christendom is to be attributed 
to it. Catharine Beecher and hosts of like impartial wit- 
nesses have told us how God has been made abhorrent, and 
religion distasteful, by it. Albert Barnes and similar suf- 
ferers, giving voice to their travail and agony, tell us that 
it makes the universe " all dark, dark, dark " to them, and 



THREE WORDS. 333 

that they find no relief from the anguish and torture which 
it occasions. And besides these, the sad records of insanity 
and suicide present themselves in terrible testimony against 
it ; while the prevalent neglect of religion, and the formal 
pietism of which there is so much in the Church, and the 
material and mercenary conceptions of a good life, and of 
the motives thereto, so current, no less attest its perverting 
and corrupting work. Except sin, I know of nothing that 
so blasts and crushes, that so corrodes and agonizes, that 
so makes life a suspense and a torment, and death a horror, 
when its real principles are taken home, and come to fruit. 

Is all this nothing ? or can one, in view of facts like 
these, — facts undeniable, — be held as guilty of no wrong 
in counting them nothing, and, while himself disbelieving 
the errors thus arraigned, in allowing his children to be ed- 
ucated in them, or in making himself in any way a party to 
the continuance of their corrupting and tragic sway ? Who 
will dare so affirm ? Let those who believe this theology be 
faithful to it ; and let us thank God for the earnest and 
saintly souls who, professing it, are able to draw life from 
the Saviour, and nutriment and inspiration from the Gospel, 
in spite of it. But being what it is, — with such a history 
as to what it has done, and such a record as to what, so far 
as it still retains any hold on heads or hearts, it is doing, — 
there is no duty more solemn or imperative for those eman- 
cipated from it than to wash their hands of all complicity 
with it. By all means, let us cultivate the most kindly and 
catholic relations with its believers. Though so mistaken, 
they are none the less our brethren and sisters in Christ, 
and many of them are setting us examples of a consecrated 
and fervent piety which we may well imitate. As our 
brothers and sisters in Christ, let us be ready to co-operate 
with them in every Christian endeavor ; but to all induce- 
ments or pleas towards any sympathetic identification with 
them in the direct or indirect support of their creeds, the 
one answer should be, " 0, my soul, come not thou into 
their secret ; unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou 
united." All words are poor to express what seems to me 
not simply the inconsistency, but the sin of those who say 
or do otherwise. For what are they doing ? It would be 



334 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

bad enough if they were encouraging merely innoxious errors. 
But they are doing far worse. They are helping to main- 
tain and diffuse errors that have, for centuries, been sapping 
the faith of Christendom, and infusing false and venal mo- 
tives into every popular conception of religion. They are 
helping to give prevalence and permanence to what, as they 
believe, misrepresents the character of God, dims the glory 
of Christ, impairs the efficacy of the Gospel, detracts from 
the power of the Cross, and that has torn more hearts, and 
withered more hopes, and corrupted more lives, and mantled 
more souls in the gloom of despair than — with the single 
exception named — any other cause. They are thus helping 
to conserve what they should count it their solemn duty to 
God and man to correct and destroy. 

Does some one say, The minister I support is ' liberal/ 
and does not at all offensively preach his creed ? Then the 
more shame for the minister, and for every Universalist 
found among his supporters. Herein is one of the unfavor- 
able conditions under which we have to labor. ' Orthodoxy ' 
has, to a wide extent, ceased to be frank and honest. Great- 
ly modified it has been, and, as was said in our first chapter, 
the creeds as formerly held are, every year, being put more 
and more out of the thought and faith of the people. Thank 
God for the tendencies which are thus gradually making an 
end of them, and for the drift in which any minister is, in 
any actual sense, becoming more ' liberal ' and Christian in 
the substance of his faith. But so far as the old faith at all 
lingers, let us have it from every pulpit just as it is held. 
The ground of complaint now is that even these modified 
creeds are sugar-coated by too many who pretend to preach 
them. Public taste, if not public sentiment, has got beyond 
them, and so the sulphur is made to burn without the old 
blue or the ancient odor. What a thinning out of '. evan- 
gelical ' churches, and what a corresponding filling up of 
ours, we should see, were it not so ! The Episcopal church 
in Philadelphia, said by the talkative Universalist to whom I 
have referred to have a congregation one half Universalists, 
recently changed pastors. The new-comer was moved to 
be honest, and in a very explicit way preached the doctrines 
of the church, whereupon — so I was assured — he was no- 



THREE WORDS. 335 

tified that he must cease such preaching, or that he or a 
large part of the congregation would leave. He has not 
left, and I have not heard that the congregation has seri- 
ously diminished — from which the inference is clear. What 
shall be said either of such a minister, or such a congrega- 
tion ? or what shall be said of those openly or secretly 
believing Universalism who become parties to such insin- 
cerity ? 

Away with all concealment, or " daubing with untem- 
pered mortar " ! The doctrine of endless woe is either true 
or false. If true, it is not a thing to be withheld, disguised, 
or toyed with. It should be preached, distinctly, unmistak- 
ably, constantly, in pulpits, at funerals, at every possible 
opportunity to alarm souls ; and he who, pretending to 
think it true, fails so to preach it, is a trifler and a time- 
serving traitor to his hearers ; and were it possible that it 
could prove true, every such dainty and treacherous trifler 
would go up to the throne of God at death with the blood 
of souls, lost through his unfaithfulness, dripping from his 
hands, to deserve the hottest place in the hell to which they 
would be doomed. When shall we have the real character 
of such men understood ? How nobly contrasts with them 
the conscientious and plain-spoken minister who said, "I 
was dismissed because I could not preach Universalist ser- 
mons at funerals " ! 

And the spirit of all this applies equally to those who, 
having adopted Universalist conclusions, are willing, under 
any pretext, to occupy ' evangelical ' pulpits, ostensibly 
committed to ' evangelical ' doctrines. How can such men 
stand up before God and their congregations in prayer, or 
use the name of the pure Christ, without being crushed 
under a sense of their duplicit}^, or feeling that their pulpit 
floors are likely, at any moment, to open beneath them ? 
Think of Paul, after having been met by the Master and 
brought to a knowledge of the truth, as concealing his con- 
version, and continuing to labor as if he were a Pharisee as 
before ! Think of John, or Peter, or any of the Apostles, 
as pursuing such a course ! The very thought is an insult 
to them. And yet these men of to-day, professing to stand 
in place of Paul and Peter and the rest, are practising a 



336 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

hypocrisy and a double-dealing which would have made the 
Apostles a hissing and a by-word. Is what would have 
been so base in Apostles manly and creditable in their suc- 
cessors ? 

But, special as are the claims of Universalism on the loy- 
alty of all who accept it, considering the errors it would 
supplant, and the wrong of concealing these errors when 
they are held as truth, or of supporting or seeming to hold 
them when they have been renounced, these claims are, if 
possible, immeasurably intensified when we consider what.it 
is in itself. I have already sufficiently said what it is, if it 
be the truth. There is nothing else so grand or precious. 
It is light. It is consolation. It is encouragement. It is 
spiritual power. It is fulness of peace. And the day of 
millennial glory will never come till its principles are per- 
ceived and its spirit diffused, rendering it the life of all 
souls. We talk of the importance of our republic. And it 
is important. I know of no simply human trust so moment- 
ous. But what is any mere form of government compared 
with this Gospel of God's universal love and omnipotent 
grace ? Blot out these institutions of ours from among the 
nations, and what has been done in comparison with what 
would follow were this central sun of truth blotted from the 
religious heavens ? Dear, and justly dear, as our republic 
is to every American or Christian heart, dearer far, unutter- 
ably dearer, should this Gospel be to us ; and, shameful as 
would be the treachery of any man against a government 
freighted with so much of inestimable worth to the civiliza- 
tion and progress of the world, still more shameful is, I be- 
lieve, in the sight of God, and should be in the sight of all 
honest men, the disloyalty of those who, believing this Gos- 
pel, are, directly or indirectly, allowing themselves to be 
numbered against it — more shameful because this, in its 
principles, underlies not only all right government, all be- 
neficent institutions, and all noble being or doing, but all 
faith in God, and all hope for man. 

Have we not a right, then, to appeal to you, the thou- 
sands now in so false a position in respect to what you be- 
lieve as truth, and am I doing more than my duty in holding 
up this word, Loyalty, before you, and, in the name of all 



THREE WORDS. 337 

that is manly and just, pleading with you to make the new- 
departure on which, if you would be really honest men and 
women, deserving the world's respect or God's approval, 
you should at once enter ? I know the excuses offered and 
the causes at work in connection with this subject. I know 
the strength of social ties. I know the power of 'respecta- 
bility ' and fashion. I know the force of all those currents 
of influence which are sweeping away from us towards more 
' popular ' churches, and away from all churches into indif- 
ference, or religious homelessness and vagabondism. But 
I know also that, as not one of these considerations weighs 
so much as an atom of dust in God's scales towards justify- 
ing the disloyalty in behalf of which they are pleaded, so 
neither will they have the force of a burnt straw to hold 
any true man or woman away from the Church to which 
his or her sympathy and support should be given. 

This, it is time that it should be understood, is not a 
question of personal preference, or convenience, or taste, or 
position, or social or business interest. Like all questions 
of duty, it is simply a question between God and the soul : 
a question of honor ; a question of manhood or womanhood ; 
a question of integrity and right. No person is so rich as 
to be superior to the obligations it involves ; none so hum- 
ble or poor as to be absolved from its demands. " Where 
do you propose to go to church ? " asked wealthy friends 
of a noble man, — one of the members of my Church, now 
in weakness sailing out to the uuseen sea, — on his removal 
to Philadelphia. " To the Universalist Church, if I can find 
one," was the reply. " 0, but that is not fashionable or 
popular here," said the friends. " No matter whether it is 
fashionable or not," came the manly response. "It is my 
Church, and I shall go to it, though its service be in a 
barn." In that spoke a man, as every true man, conscious 
of God and wishing to maintain his own integrity, will 
speak in answer to all possible pleas or excuses for support- 
ing what he does not believe, or for going where he is out 
of place, or for going nowhere. 

There is but one course for a man who would be truthful, 
— and that is, always to speak the truth, though the heavens 
fall. And for the same reason, there is but one course for 
22 



338 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

those believing Universalism, if they would preserve their 
self-respect, and be able without shame to think of God, or 
to look the world in the face, — and that is, to be loyal to 
their convictions, at whatever cost. Is Universalism un- 
fashionable or unpopular where you live ? Give all you are 
or have to it, and help to make it fashionable and popular. 
" Universalism is not respectable/ 7 sneeringly said some- 
body in a crowded horse-car, in Philadelphia — to which 
remark there was, all round, a general nodding of assent. 
"Gentlemen," said the same noble man just referred to, 
rising from his seat — a man known of all to be second to 
no other as a high-toned and Christian merchant, " Gentle- 
men, am I respectable ? I am a UniversalisL" There was 
no more talk about the non-respectability of Universalism in 
that car. In like manner should all Universalists, in the 
pulpit or out of the pulpit, honor themselves and their 
faith. Is Universalism unable in your community to boast 
of wealth or numbers ? Put yourselves and your families 
and whatever money or position you command into its 
scale. Are companions or friends indisposed to go where it 
is preached? Let your word be, Go where you prefer; but 
as for me, let my right hand forget its cunning if I forget 
the faith or the Church to which my service is due. Is there 
no Universalist church where you live ? Do the most in 
your power, at the earliest moment possible, to have one, 
putting yourselves, meanwhile, into living connection with 
the nearest church of your faith available to you. Have 
you, if you are a minister, a good position where you are, 
and are you doubtful what will come to you if you avow 
yourself, and change your relations ? No matter ; be an 
honest man, following the behest of God in the call of His 
truth, like Abraham, who " went out, not knowing whither 
he went ; " like Paul, who went "bound in the spirit to 
Jerusalem," not knowing what should befall him there, only 
assured that bonds and afflictions awaited him, but saying, 
" None of these things move me, neither count I my life 
dear unto myself." In one word, believing Universalism, be 
loyal to it, as the patriot is loyal to his country ; as the 
lover is loyal to his mistress ; as the saint is loyal to his 
God. In Paul's words to the Corinthians, and as the Lord 



THREE WORDS. 339 

Christ would say, could he speak to you out of heaven, 
"Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit ye like men, 
be strong." 

How but by such steadfastness and fidelity has truth ever 
advanced, or humanity been carried forward? It seems a 
small thing to you, man or woman disloyal to the victorious 
Christ and the Gospel of universal redemption, living amidst 
all that the sufferings of Christ and the fidelity of faithful 
souls have given you, to turn your back upon the truth, to 
conceal your convictions, to play false with God and give 
support to what you believe to be error ; but how empty 
would history be of heroism, and how barren of all the 
grandest results it now records, had all been like you ! 
Where, bethink you, I pray, where would the world have 
been to-day but for the consciousness of Responsibility to 
Opinion, which has possessed and moved souls, through the 
ages, animating them to noble doing and daring for Truth's 
sake ? Loyalty to ideas, — fidelity to honest conviction, — 
the purpose at all hazards to put one's self unflinchingly 
where one morally and intellectually belongs — what but 
this has given us heroes and martyrs, illuminated the 
otherwise dim annals of our race with the most chivalric 
self-sacrifice, destroyed old errors, lifted fresh truths into 
victory, and so kept the wheels of the world's progress in 
motion ? If all on whose eyes the light of new truth has 
dawned, and to whom advanced and unpopular convictions 
have come, had been as insensible to duty in this regard as 
some have always been, and as you now are, you would 
to-day have been savage wanderers in some wilderness, 
bowiug before some stock or stone in worship, and in place 
of all this splendid sum of results which we call Christian 
Civilization, there would have been no Christ, no Cross, no 
Conquered Grave, no toiling Apostles, no saintly confessors, 
suffering for your sake and mine, — nothing of the fruitage 
that is, or of the more glorious fruitage yet to be, — only 
the dearth and darkness of an utter barbarism* Ideas, con- 
victions, bravely held, confessed or proclaimed in face of 
penalty, obloquy, death, — lived for, — ■ died for, — these it is 
that underlie all this fair structure which we see, and that have 
put us where we are, and made the life of humanity, in its 



340 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

best things, what it is ; and whoever, man or woman, hav- 
ing- any eonviction really held, and especially a moral or re- 
ligious conviction, is not honest towards it, does not an- 
nounce it, does not seek identity with its friends, does not 
stand by it at whatever peril, and work for it, proves false 
to the law by which alone the world's growth proceeds, and 
deals dishonorably alike with the God who gives the truth, 
with the brave souls who have sought to serve it in the 
past, and with all who are concerned to possess it in the 
future. 

brothers and sisters, whoever, whatever, wherever you 
are, thus disloyal now, will you not, if you have any stuff 
of manhood or womanhood in you, awaken to a sense of 
these things, and with conscience alive, and self-respect 
asserting itself, enter on the new departure for which I 
plead, and, whatever the ties that now hold you, or the 
considerations that now influence you, for Christ's sake, 
for your own sake, for your children's sake, for the world's 
sake, resolve henceforth to put yourselves where you be- 
long ? 

III. Ignition. Whatever Christianity proposes, it pro- 
poses as a ministry of Divine quickening. The baptism of 
Christ is a baptism of 'the Holy Ghost and of fire ; ' and 
accompanying the Pentecostal outpouring of the spirit, 
'tongues like as of fire '.appeared. The symbol doubtless 
had incidental meanings ; but it significantly tells at what 
Christianity aims. " Light enough, but no heat" is the crisp 
phrase in which Wendell Phillips once explained the failure 
of all heathen systems and philosophies to give life. Chris- 
tianity supplies this lack. Its business is to set souls spir- 
itually on fire, melting them into contrition, kindling them 
to enthusiasm, and filling them with the glow of all holy 
emotion and purpose. Christ's own being, therefore — calm 
and undemonstrative as he was, was all aglow with the fires 
of Divine lofe and truth. Every Apostle flamed with faith, 
enthusiasm, and devout assurance and consecration. And 
if, anywhere, since, there have been those, high or humble, 
who, in Christ's name, have been in any degree earnest, 
saintly, heroic, it has been solely because, whatever their 



THREE WORDS. 341 

belief, or however they may have argued, they have also 
fell Christianity, and have been so far kindled and set spir- 
itually to burning- by it. In steam-engines, other things be- 
ing equal, power is always in the ratio of fuel consumed. 
So, by a like law, in life, spiritual power is proportionate 
to the substance of truth fused in the soul. And illustrating 
how Christianity seeks to affect us, these things in the past 
indicate what must be in the future, if its work is at all 
effectually to proceed. The world is to be redeemed, not 
by dogma or debate, — only as thought is melted into feel- 
ing and purpose, and as the flame thus kindled spreads from 
soul to soul, from church to church, quickening our whole 
humanity into one universal glow of love, adoration and 
child-like service. Life only can give life. 

What fact or thought, then, so fit as this wherewith to 
end these pages ? These several chapters are the children 
of my brain ; but they are even more the outpouring of my 
heart. I believe Universalism, my faith in it being identical 
with my faith in God. I love the Universalist Church, be- 
lieving in its future as confidently as I believe 4 in the future 
of Christianity itself. I see in it the leaven which is, ulti- 
mately, to leaven all Christendom ; the stone that is to smite 
every image of error, and to become a great mountain, fill- 
ing the whole earth. It is, therefore, I believe, the Provi- 
dential agency which is not only to bring the entire Church 
into agreement with the truth, but which is to attract and 
organize in allegiance to Christ the vast multitude of souls, 
sickening of the creeds and temporarily drifting from all pos- 
itive faith and religious ideas. But this future of our Church, 
I equally believe, is not possible in the line of much of our 
present thinking and methods ; is contingent upon an utter 
renunciation of various errors now prevalent among us, — 
upon a clearer perception of truths now held only as half- 
truths, and so held, if not for evil, certainly for no good, — 
and upon a deeper and intenser religious experience and a 
higher order of spiritual life. And these last, I no less be- 
lieve, are to be attained only through a more vital and in- 
seeing appreciation and a clo-ser and more pungent and 
personal administration of the Gospel as an awakening, con- 
verting and consecrating power. 



342 QUE NEW DEPASTURE. 

So believing, it is the one desire of my life to see these 
conditions fulfilled, and our Church realizing its proffered 
destiny. This book is the result. It is a contribution 
towards an attempt to help on an end for which we are all 
praying. And now, approaching its close, not without some 
concern as to whether it is at all to answer the purpose for 
which only I have written it, as I look back over the themes 
I have tried to discuss, and forward to our future, — as, 
especially, having spoken to those in opposition, and to 
those disloyal, I turn, finally, to those who are the active 
and contributing constituency of our Church, organized or 
scattered, and, reflecting on what we have and are, and on 
what we must have if we are to live, query how far they, — 
rather, how far we, are to prove duly considerate of what is 
demanded of us, and equal to it, no word in the language 
comes to me as so well summing up all our needs in one, as 
this word, Ignition. It is not a word often used in such a 
connection, — I do not know that I ever saw it so used ; 
but it is none the less — possibly it is all the more — fitting 
on this account for the service here appointed it. 

The burden of all these pages is that the time has come 
for an advance of our whole Church, not simply into 
methods and appeals more consonant with our predomi- 
nant conclusions, but on to altogether higher ground spir- 
itually, in more pronounced and earnest labor for the con- 
version and salvation of souls, and the systematic cultiva- 
tion of the religious life. As I have not failed to intimate 
at every suitable point, there are many things to be said 
greatly to our credit, and we have numerous reasons for 
encouragement and thanksgiving. We have brain, thought, 
argument. We have money, schools, intelligence. We have 
large and kindly hearts, and a most reputable benevolence 
and uprightness. We have thus many of the conditions for 
becoming a mighty and effective Church already in the pro- 
cess of fulfilment. But — and in saying this I shall only 
be repeating what has been implied or said on every page 
preceding — spiritually we are not alive as we should be. 
Souls are not kindled. Hearts are not aglow. We scarcely 
begin as yet to be penetrated by any proper consciousness 
of what Universalism means. We do not at all commen- 



THREE WORDS. 343 

surately feel what, in it, God has given to our charge, nor 
what there is for us, under God and the leadership of Christ, 
to do for our own salvation, or for the salvation of others. 

I speak, of course, of the rule. Those there have been 
and are, profoundly alive to all these things, — hearts fer- 
vid, glowing, consecrated, showing every day what Univer- 
salism duly appreciated and experienced would make of us 
all. But how few such, comparatively ! — though not few 
in the aggregate. Mainly, Universalism is accepted and 
held with sole reference to its letter. It is a theory. It is 
a doctrine. It is an arraignment and challenge of other 
creeds ; a denial ; an attack ; a controversy ; an argument ; 
a shell of statements. Or, it is simply a certificate of final 
safety for everybody ; a proclamation of God's impartial 
love and of Christ's certain triumph in getting the whole 
world into heaven. What is implied back of and under- 
neath all this is little considered. We fail, therefore, of the 
quickening and inspiration we should get from it. We are 
not warmed, fused, made spiritually fluent and forceful by 
it. The baptism of fire does not come, as it ought to come, 
upon us through it. Hence coldness, lack of life, waste 
of opportunity, loss of power. We need vivification. We 
need that the rays of the Sun of Righteousness shall strike 
down to the roots of our being-, penetrating us with kindling 
and life-giving energy. Beneath the letter, we need to per- 
ceive and catch the spirit, that we may be set on fire by 
it ; and we shall never personally know what Universalism 
is, nor can our Church ever become spiritually electric and 
mighty, until we are. 

Assuming nothing, then, — speaking only as from the 
ranks, as a fellow-believer and a humble laborer with you 
for what is so worthy of our love, may I address myself, 
frankly, earnestly, to you, brothers and sisters of the Uni- 
versalist Church of America, wherever or whoever you may 
be, and as my final word touching this New Departure 
which I have been trying to further, plead with you, by all 
that is precious in our faith, and by all that is at stake upon 
your spiritual life, to consider what this word, Ignition, 
means, and to seek henceforth to have its meaning fulfilled 
among us ? You will agree with me that we want Candor 



344 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

from our neighbors and friends who reject and oppose Uni- 
versalism, and that we have a right to demand it. You 
will equally agree with me that we want Loyalty from those 
who, believing Universalism, are now faithless to it, and 
that we no less have the right to demand it. But are you 
under less obligation to Universalism than these others ? 
You avow Universalism. You represent it. Its banner is 
in your hands, its interests in your special keeping. It is 
strong or weak, it is spiritually effective or fruitless, it will 
command the world's attention and respect, becoming a con- 
fessed power or otherwise, according to what you are and 
do, and the illustration you thus furnish, or fail to furnish, 
of what it is able to be and to accomplish as an element of 
Christian experience and life. If, then, it has a right to the 
Christian recognition and the fidelity on which we all insist 
as its due from these others, what has it not a right to de- 
mand of us, of you ? Am I not justified in saying that more 
even than it needs, or has a right to demand, Candor from 
the one class, or Loyalty from the other, it needs and has a 
right to demand Ignition among you ? needs and has a right 
to demand this more than either of these other things, be- 
cause, important and desirable as they are, our Church is in 
no sense dependent on them, can live, and grow, and do its 
work, if it must, without them, while this is vital and indis- 
pensable. 

Each of the preceding chapters has been a mention of 
some condition on which, as I believe, our future growth 
and effectiveness depend. But really, as has been inti- 
mated, these and all conditions are summed up in this one — 
that Christ's baptism of fire shall come upon us through the 
kindling and igniting power of the truth we hold. We need 
this ignition through and through. But let me mass as 
much as possible concerning it under two specifications. 

1. We require it in respect to our responsibility. What 
is our responsibility ? It is, as the stewards of God's truth, 
to give this truth faithful expression and service, for the 
world's redemption. Till this is felt, no conception of our 
real position and work is possible. 

As Universalists, we claim no exclusive possession of the 
truth. But conceding all we can as to truth among others, 



THEEE WORDS. 345 

we have in Universalism, if it be not altogether false, the 
best interpretation of Christianity as Christ taught it which 
has thus far been reached. Not that, as any of us yet hold 
it, it is final. The clearest minds among us doubtless have 
their misconceptions, or somehow fail to see the whole truth 
without refraction, in its exact relations at every point. 
But in the doctrine of God's Fatherhood and of man's broth- 
erhood, in the doctrine of Christ's efficiency and of the ulti- 
mate unity of human destiny, with what is contained in 
these as to duty and the means and conditions of salvation, 
we have what is final, if anything is final. And these doc- 
trines being final, we have in them, for substance, the very 
Gospel of Christ, for which alike the intellect and heart of 
man are clamoring, — in which alone is furnished that which 
can most successfully stem the present incoming tides of 
materialism and unbelief, and bring to the solid shores of 
faith the drifting thousands whose rescue in this world is at 
all possible, and by which can be done for man and the 
world what nothing else can do. 

Think, then, what momentous interests are hanging upon 
a due realization of these things by us, and upon our fitting 
appropriation and illustration of a Gospel so precious ! Who 
can exaggerate its importance, or what is depending On our 
fidelity as its representatives ? It is not a mere doctrine 
about salvation, we are to remember, that is in our keeping. 
It is a redemptive power. It is salvation itself, because a 
Divine agency for the conversion of individuals and the re- 
generation of the race ; and we have it as God's gift, that, 
putting it first of all into our own lives for their sanctifica- 
tion, we may each help to put it into the thought and life 
of the world, to fulfil its redemptive purpose. 

What, then, follows ? That if the world is at any time, 
or anywhere, actually to be saved, we, under Christ, serving 
his truth, have each something to do towards saving it. 
This is the method of redemption. Christ's subjects become 
his instruments. For this reason, every Christian, accord- 
ing to the truth he holds, has a share in the saving work. 
Hence our Lord's words to his disciples, " Ye are the salt 
of the earth ; ye are the light of the world." Not, abso- 
lutely, that there is no truth, or religious life, outside the 



346 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

pale of Christian influence, but that the world's hope, re- 
ligiously, is in Christianity and its believers. Of those, 
however, to whom much is given, much is required ; and 
this saving work is ours beyond all others, because our 
trust of truth is so much larger and better. A most unfit 
and beggarly conclusion, indeed, it would be, for us to vaunt 
the superior grandeur and excellence of Universalism as we 
do, and then to live as if it were only so many empty words, 
and the world were never to be saved, and we had nothing 
to do towards saving it ! The grander the truth, the more 
saintly the life, and the more Christian the work, demanded 
as its expression in the world's behalf. 

The difficulty — or one of the difficulties — in respect to 
this subject is, that not only is there a failure to feel how 
much God has given us in the Gospel, but that there is no 
sufficient sense of the actual peril of souls and the world on 
account of error, indifference, unbelief, and sin, and there- 
fore no fitting sense of the reality of their need, or of the 
demand on us in their behalf. If a building is on fire, and 
human beings are seen in it exposed to destruction, — if a 
child is in the water, drowning, or some poor creature is 
found perishing of starvation, instantly, the appeal being to 
our senses, we appreciate it, and are stirred to a sense of 
duty to do what we can to render succor. In the case of 
those needing the ministry of Christ, and our ministry as 
his instruments, there is no such vividness of impression. 
But precisely this is what is wanted. And why may wc 
not have it ? True, the appeal is to our moral conscious- 
ness, and not to our senses. But who doubts that there is 
an unseen life more real than the seen ? Or who does not 
know that whatever touches this touches us most keenly, 
because in the thing most vital ? What is any physical ex- 
posure or suffering, at its worst, compared with mental ag- 
ony or a breaking heart ? Mind is always more than mat- 
ter. Souls are always more than bodies. And by so much 
as this is true, ignorance of God and alienation from Him, 
spiritual darkness and destitution, the agony of hearts crushed 
and comfortless, or yearning for light and finding none, the 
decay of manhood, the waste of moral stamina and force, 
the insensibility and death of the soul, are really far more 



THREE WORDS. 347 

terrible, and ought to stir ns to an intenser anxiety to render 
relief and cure than any bodily peril can. 

Why cannot this be understood ? Above all, theoretically 
insisting on the fact in our moral philosophy so constantly 
and emphatically as we do, why is it not more generally 
understood and felt among us ? Why, but that our convic- 
tions are formal instead of vital, — cold and torpid instead 
of glowing and propelling ? Set these convictions, that we 
so readily talk, rightly to burning within us, and with them 
the sense of responsibility which they are fitted to kindle, 
and there could be no such heedlessness or inactivity as 
now. Feeling our obligation, we should bestir ourselves as 
sedulously, in our anxiety to live and work for human re- 
demption in Christ, as we now do to extend succor to those 
in physical peril ; and, with our hearts burning as they 
would burn, we could no more justify ourselves before God, 
or to our own consciences, for unconcern or indolence, or 
for doing anything, directly or indirectly, save in the line 
of purity and Christian living and endeavor, than we could 
now justify ourselves should we push back the drowning into 
the water instead of helping them out, or should we fan the 
flames in which screaming victims were enveloped instead 
of doing our utmost to extinguish them. 

A becoming intensity of feeling, then, in regard to Christ 
and the reality of his* work, and of our obligation to be his 
helpers — this, in a word, is the thing demanded among us. 
Now, we don't half believe what we profess. Think for a 
moment of the inconsistency of professing to believe in the 
salvation of the world through God's truth and grace in His 
Son, and then living a life that in some way tells every day 
against the fulfilment of what is so argued for as truth ! — 
of proclaiming that the time is coming when all are lovingly 
and reverently to delight in God's service, and then living 
irreverently and profanely ! — of talking of the triumph of 
righteousness, and then helping to create a weak and lan- 
guid public sentiment concerning intemperance and the hab- 
its and business from which it comes, or concerning any 
evil from which Christ would .save, or in any way contribut- 
ing an example that helps to strengthen sin and Satan, or 
to hinder the victory of holiness ! Conscience needs stir- 



348 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

ring, conviction needs igniting, in respect to all these things ; 
and could we but have the sense of responsibility that would 
thus be kindled in a becoming consciousness of what souls 
and the world are suffering without Christ and his regener- 
ating power, and of the reality of that work of redemption 
in which, as believers of truths so grand and precious, we 
are called to participate, we should see an awakening among 
us that would speedily set us all to thinking, and praying, 
and living, and working for the fulfilment of our faith, that 
would very soon make us a power for the salvation of souls 
beyond anything the world has ever seen. 

Ah, if we could but have something of the intensity of 
Christ's conviction and feeling ! Why did he leave the 
glory he had with his Father, and come down to earth to 
give himself to this work of human redemption ? Or why 
was all heaven moved with concern at his coming ? Or why 
is there such joy in heaven over every repentant sinner ? 
Why but because, in the light in which they regard it, the 
need of redemption is seen to be so real, and the importance 
of the work so great ? And should what is so real and im- 
portant to them seem of small consequence to us? What 
work of human suggestion can begin to compare with this 
in the momentousness of its interest, or its claims ? And 
yet, should some earthly dignitary send to us, saying, I am 
engaged in an important enterprise for the instruction and 
elevation of my people, and I desire your aid to give it suc- 
cess, who of us would not be proud of the invitation, and be 
ambitious, in a becoming sense of the importance of the 
work and of our responsibility, to do all we possibly could 
to insure the success desired ? Shall we the less appreciate 
such an invitation because it comes from God and His Son, 
or be less desirous, rightly estimating the greatness of the 
work and our responsibility, to make of ourselves all that we 
can as co-workers with them ? There is not one of us, not 
even the feeblest and poorest, to whom God is not saying, I 
want your help in my effort to save men, or to whom Christ 
is not sending his pleading message, Will you not work 
with me for the great end foivwhich I died ? Shall we an- 
swer, No ? Who can tell what shall be the effect of our 
earnestness and fidelity, in light, redemption, and peace to 



THREE WORDS. 349 

souls, on the one hand, or what consequences of sadness 
and wretchedness shall follow our insensibility and sloth, on 
the other ? 

Let no one say that this is pressing things to extremes. 
It is not pressing things to extremes. It is the literal, prac- 
tical fact, unless the Gospel be a dream, and Christ a vision- 
ary, and the prophesied coming of the kingdom of God the 
wildest hallucination. Where does God work towards any 
highest purpose for man except through man ? Where are 
harvests gathered save as man plants and tills ? Or, how 
have ignorance and sin been conquered, or liberty achieved, 
or any progress in knowledge, or civilization won, save as 
man has struggled, sacrificed, toiled ? Either God is, or He 
is not, proposing the spiritual enfranchisement and perfec- 
tion of our race. If He is not, Christianity is false, and we 
are believing a lie. If He is, the design is to be fulfilled 
through means ; and if through any means, then in part 
through us, because we have in charge the truth which can 
best help on the sanctifying process. Any idea or assump- 
tion to the contrary is a misconception that needs, first of 
all, to be burned out of us, as a consciousness of the real 
fact is set to burning in us. If the grand prophecy of our 
faith is ever to be accomplished, and truth and righteous- 
ness are actually to triumph, the consummation is to be 
reached, under God, only as we and those like us do the 
work and fight the battle ; and the question we have reason, 
every day, most anxiously to ask, is, How are we doing what 
God has assigned us ? Is Christ the moral battery of the uni- 
verse ? We are his conductors. Are we electric ? Is he 
the Captain of our salvation ? We are his soldiers. Are 
we rightly waging the contest ? If we are not, it is for us 
to feel, and so far as we are not, we waste his power ; sub- 
tract from the sum of the moral forces on which the 
world's redemption depends ; help to shadow and drag 
down souls and the race instead of aiding to illumine and 
lift them up ; and to this extent postpone the hour when 
Christ shall conquer, and God ' be all in all.' 

Who of us, then, does not need to be set on fire by a 
deeper and intenser comprehension of such a responsibility, 
that we may be moved to greater warmth of feeling and pur- 



350 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

pose, and so be impelled to more of earnestness and conse- 
cration as the disciples of Christ and laborers with him for 
the subjugation of evil and the victory of God and good ? 

2. But not alone in a juster sense of our responsibility, do 
we need Ignition. Most of all we need it in a juster and 
more vital appreciation and experience of the spirit and 
power of our faith. Here is the weak point of all Christen- 
dom — a failure to perceive the inmost meanings of Christ, 
and to have him, a living power, instead of a technical 
assent, in the soul. It is our weak point with the rest. 
Can we, just here, have an awakening ? If not — this whole 
book has been an attempt to intimate what must be accepted 
as the certain conclusion. 

God's prices are fixed. Spiritual results can come only 
from spiritual causes ; and if we are to make ourselves fur- 
ther felt to any wide and positive Christian purpose, we 
must become a people, as the Apostle expresses it, " alive 
unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." The old churches 
are intrenched in the popular sympathy and attachment, 
notwithstanding they no longer represent as formerly the 
current of popular thinking and faith. They have the pub- 
lic ear. They draw the multitudes. Tradition and prestige 
are theirs. And it is sometimes asked — often with no little 
concern, as we see how much occasion there is in many 
communities to consider the question, — How are we to 
change all this, or to compete with these intrenched churches 
in securing attention and attracting the people ? If we 
speak of sensational or illegitimate methods, there are many 
ways to do this. But, legitimately, I know of but one way. 

Speaking only in a general, and not in an absolute sense, 
we have done all we can with Universalism as a mere doc- 
trine or theory. Not that there is not a great work for 
Universalism yet to do in the rectification of opinion. There 
is. Not that it is to spread no farther as an idea, or as 
an interpretation of the universe. It is to become the 
prevalent thought of Christendom. What I mean to say 
is that we can no longer maintain ourselves as a distinct 
Church on a mere argumentative or controversial basis, or 
live and grow on mere dogmatic discussions. Ephraim did 
not thrive on the east wind. Topics that were once suffi- 



THREE WORDS. 351 

cient to crowd our churches, now, save under exceptional 
circumstances, no longer ' draw/ They have grown famil- 
iar ; are regarded as ' stale/ and, to a large extent, there- 
fore, have lost their charm. The world's attention is seldom 
long held by any purely dogmatic issue. There comes a 
time in every theological or religious reform when the 
awakening and enlisting force of mere doctrine expends 
itself, and when, if it is to be permanently established as an 
organized power, in a living and growing church, it must 
become something more than a protest, an exposition, or an 
argument ; — must become a minister to the spiritual life of 
the world, or having answered its end, it dies. This time 
has come with us. So far as we are really doing anything 
to-day, getting hold of the people and building a Church, 
we are doing it by virtue of what religious life there is 
among us, and because of the spiritual power we are put- 
ting into our communities. 

And this is the one only way of which I just now spoke, 
for answering the question referred to. How did Paul and 
Peter and their associates enlist attention to their crucified 
Christ, and withdraw the people from the divinely appointed, 
but superseded, religion of Moses, and from the magnificent 
temples of idolatry and the established power of heathen 
rituals ? How did Peter the Hermit inflame all Europe into 
such a fever for the crusades, drawing such multitudes away 
from home and friends and everything that was dear ? How 
did Luther conquer the almost invincible hold of Rome upon 
the popular mind and heart, and so shake the seven-hilled 
hierarchy from the despotic domination in which it had 
thought itself secure ? How did the Wesleys succeed, 
how have any of the world's agitators and reformers succeed- 
ed in securing the public ear, and conquering the possession 
of the public sympathy and faith ? How but by a burning 
enthusiasm ? How but by being themselves on fire with 
that with which they sought to kindle others ? How would 
Christianity have won the place it did, had the Apostles 
been content with merely disputing in synagogues, or argu- 
ing with the Gentiles ? They had their doctrines, and argu- 
ments, and knew how to use them. But they were no 
dealers in mere doctrine, or argument. They had them only 



352 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

as the sun has light and heat — to glow with them, or as a 
furnace has coals — to burn with them. To them, every 
doctrine was a sublime fact, and every opinion a vehicle 
through which the fire of God's truth was communicated to 
them, that they might communicate it to others for their 
kindling and salvation. There was not a faculty of their 
nature, not a precinct of their souls, that was not aflame 
with the truth they bore. How else could they have faced 
and endured what they did, or have so wrought even unto 
death ? Or who wonders that men so possessed with a 
sense of the reality and importance of their message, so 
pervaded with its indwelling spirit, so burning with the 
impulse to proclaim it, were a success as to the effect of 
their ministry, though they sealed their testimony with their 
blood ? 

So, if we are to be most profited by what we believe, or 
if the Universalist Church is to live and become a power, 
we must be possessed by Universalism ; feeling what it is ; 
made fervent, fluid, burning by it ; with hearts glowing ; 
with eyes streaming with the light of the Divine flame 
within. Our work, if we have any permanent work, is not 
simply to displace old faiths, and dispossess other churches, 
but to attract those who are now churchless, — multitudes 
of them without faith, and to transfuse the world with a new 
life ; and if we are to do this, we must ourselves be transfused, 
showing in our own fervors, in the ardor of our devotion, in 
the warmth of our zeal, in the glow of our enthusiasm, what 
we have wherewith to warm, vitalize and save others : — not 
one minister, nor one church must do this, but all, — by a 
common awakening, a common purpose, a common opening 
of hearts to the baptism of fire. There is no other way for 
us to conquer, or prevail. 

I will not here speak of what Universalism has thus to 
move and kindle us. Enough, perhaps, has been said on 
these points in previous chapters. But I cannot forbear the 
remark that nowhere since the Apostles has there been such 
a spectacle of souls awakened and glowing, or of wise, con- 
secrated, unconquerable living in nearness to Christ, and in 
blessed experience of what he only can impart, as we should 
show, if, through insight and consciousness, we could but 



THREE WORDS. 353 

be thoroughly ignited to understand and to feel all that this 
faith bestows and discloses : for to whom else have been 
given such revelations, such incentives, such appeals, such 
encouragements ? Nothing in connection with this whole 
subject so surprises, nay, so amazes me, as the fact that there 
are so many professing to be Universalists, — intelligent 
people, thoughtful people, good people, most of them, — 
ready stoutly to insist, theoretically, on the religious power 
of Universalism, and ready, not a few of them, in their way 
to work for it, who are so insensible to the grandeur of these 
revelations, so dead to these appeals, incentives and en- 
couragements, and apparently so lost to any thought that 
they should be at all moved or kindled by them. They talk 
Universalism, and talk it well, many of them ; but they fail 
to get anything but mere dogma out of it, as one gets only 
a bunch of bones in a skeleton's hand. 

How much is said among us about the salvation of the 
world! But how many hearts are touched by a sense of 
what it includes, or by the prospect it opens ? Let some 
good man who has been willing to expose himself to danger 
for the sake of others, return, bringing them in safety with 
him, and into what enthusiasm we are all kindled, and how 
their hearts throb with gratitude towards their deliverer ! 
Let some soldier ride through our streets, bearing the 
trophies of a battle in which he has conspicuously helped to 
win victory for the right, and how our pulses beat as we 
shout his welcome ! But here is Christ, with our whole race 
redeemed and brought home through what he has done and 
suffered, — here is God, victorious over all the forces of 
evil, — here are good triumphant, and every human soul 
helped into purity and blessedness, and all heaven surging 
with the joy of death destroyed, sin conquered, all mystery 
solved, all lost ones fo'und, all parted ones united, all pain 
compensated, and all God's family made one forever in His 
presence — and pulses beat not ! souls glow not ! hearts 
are unkindled, as cold as if all this were a thing of no con- 
cern ! Think of it ! TTe have here included all that God is 
as our Father, all that Christ is as our Saviour, all that the 
Cross is as the symbol of an unconquerable love, all that sin 
is as our curse, all that heaven is as the perfect answer to 
23 



354 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

our largest hopes, — and yet men and women, professing to 
believe it, and arguing and quoting the Bible to prove it, 
could scarcely be less moved by it, in any penetrating, 
fusing, experimental way, if it were simply a theorj" how 
best to dispose of last year's chaff! What but the baptism 
of the Holy Ghost can rightly move those so insensible ? 
Or how can we ever be a live and spiritually effective peo- 
ple save as there somehow comes to us an arousing — an 
opening of eyes, to see what Universalism is, — a quicken- 
ing of spiritual sensibility, to feel it, — an electric influx, 
causing thought, emotion, purpose, the whole soul, to be 
set on fire by it? 

Not that we should invite or desire any fever or excite- 
ment. The sun makes no ' fuss/ or crackle, in shining. 
Neither do the trees in growing. Christ made no show. 
He did not " strive nor cry, neither did any man hear his 
voice in the streets." He simply felt and glowed. So 
with the Apostles. So it has been with all who have had 
Christ deepest and most experimentally in them. So it 
should be with us. We want no noise ; no cheap and bois- 
terous ' gush ' ; no fanaticism ; no showy or overflowing 
religious effervescence ; no ' strange fire/ We want only 
warmth ; sensibilities thoroughly awakened ; spiritual per- 
ceptions clarified ; a fervor and glow of the entire being, as 
the fires of God's grace and of Christ's self-sacrificing love 
pervade it, and as the resulting sense of all Divine realities, 
with the glory that is possible now and the fulness of glory 
beyond, becomes a sweet experience and joy. This is 
Christian ignition, by which only can our faith possess us, 
or can we possess the world. Shall we have it f 

Shall we have it ? This is the one question of this 
book ; and, penning it here for the last time, I do so in 
confidence and hope, and yet not without solicitude and 
prayer. For, though I see much as I look over the field to 
assure and encourage us, yet, as I yield myself to the 
thoughts which the question suggests, and consider how 
many things must concur for its right answer, and how 
much depends, for ourselves, for our country, for the world, 
on its being so answered, I cannot conceal from myself how 



THREE WORDS. 355 

serious it is, nor that there are grounds for some appre- 
hension. 

Dwelling for a moment on the question, my mind is busy 
with our past, our present, our future. Looking back over 
these years of our first century, I think of the manifest 
Providence which attended the opening of our history, and 
of all that has since been done to plant and extend this 
Church of our love. I reflect on all that has helped to 
make it what it is, and that not only are we the heirs of the 
ages, sharing in the results of all the great work of the 
world's great souls, — apostles, heroes, martyrs, and gath- 
ering fruit from the seed which, in blood and tears, they 
planted, but that we are specially the heirs of the devoted 
and earnest men who founded and have builded our Church 
— building themselves, some of them, forever into it. I 
think of Murray and Winchester and the early Streeters, 
and Lathe, and Richards, and the rest, whom I never saw. 
I think of the Ballous, and Turner, and Balfour, and Sebas- 
tian Streeter, and Whittemore, and their co-laborers, whom 
it was my privilege to know, and whose faces hang as un- 
fading pictures in the gallery of my heart. I think of the 
zeal and sincerity and self-sacrifice which these names, and 
those of others no less faithful, symbolize, and thus of what 
has been done to make us what we are, and something of 
the toil and brain and heart our Church as it exists to-day 
has cost. 

Then, as I consider what is the truth which has thus been 
served, and how we have ripened in apprehending it, and 
what an influence has gone out from us, and what we have 
come to be, and what are the possibilities inviting us to 
their fulfilment, the query comes, For what has all this 
been ? To what end have these men lived and labored ? 
To what end has this Church so grown in all the resources 
of church-power ? To what end these leavening influences 
which it has so diffused ? To what end these great possi- 
bilities ? Only that we, and those who are to succeed us, 
should suffer them to be in vain, or so far in vain that L T ni- 
versalism is to go into history, not as an organized Church, 
standing through the generations to do permanent work for 
Christ and the evangelization of the world, but simply as an 



356 OUR NEW DEPARTURE. 

ephemeral movement, a temporary means of modifying 
thought, appearing for a little while, and then passing 
away ? And then, as I reflect what would be lost should 
this be our end, and how hungering hearts, and eyes blinded 
with tears, and an unbelieving and sinful world need us, and 
what momentous consequences are suspended on our con- 
tinued existence and increasing power, I seem to hear all 
our ascended saints and worthies, with one voice, appealing 
to us, and protesting, God forbid that, through the insensi- 
bility and faithlessness of those to whom we have be- 
queathed so great a trust, our toils and sacrifices should 
come only to such an end ! Shall this be their end ? This 
is the question which God, and Christ, and all who have 
labored in our past, and every interest concerned, are uniting 
to press upon us as we stand on the threshold of our second 
century. How will we answer ? 

A potent and impressive answer was that, so far as one 
man could answer, given by the solitary Universalist who, 
in a community doctrinally arrayed against him, conquered 
prejudice and disarmed opposition, extorting the confession, 
" We think we might manage his arguments, but we don't 
know what to do with his life ?? ! It was a life so generous, 
so pure, so prayerful, so thoughtful and loving towards 
man, so full of piety towards God, in all things so per- 
vaded by the very flavor of Christ's spirit, and thus so in 
advance of the lives about him, that it was a constant won- 
der to those who observed and felt it. Who can tell what 
came of it for the honor of Christ and the conversion of 
souls ? 

God help and quicken us till every Universalist, pene- 
trated in like manner by the spirit of our faith, shall attest 
its power in a similar life. Then will all questions touching 
our Future be effectually answered, and our destiny be as- 
sured. Then will Universalism become the recognized syn- 
onyme of all that is grandest in thought, noblest in aim, 
purest in life, and most sanctifying in influence ; and, giving 
demonstrative evidence that the life of God is flowing through 
it, the Universalist Church will go forward into constantly 
fresh Departures, because into steadily enlarging plans and 



THREE WORDS. 357 

widening power — each New Departure taking it on to 
higher ground, and into more earnest labor in Christ's be- 
half, until its work below shall be finished in the flowing 
together of all churches in form, as they should now be one 
in spirit, and as the Church praying and struggling on 
earth becomes the Church victorious in heaven. 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS £ 

022 190 354 7 




